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MEETING JESUS 











i 







ERNEST G. CRABILL 
EVANGELIST 











































MEETING JESUS 


SELECTED 

SERMONS 

OF 

ERNEST G. CRABILL 

u 

EVANGELIST 




PUBLISHED BY 

PRACTICAL BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL 
BIBLE SCHOOL PARK, NEW YORK 





Copyright, 1918, by 
ERNEST G. CRABILL 


INTRODUCTION 



The many calls that have come from friends for a 
book of my sermons is the reason for the publication of 
this book. I have felt the force of’ Solomon’s statement, 
11 to the making of books there is no end, ’ ’ and knowing 
that there are so many good books and sermons and ex¬ 
positions of Scripture on the market, it almost looked 
foolish for me to add another, of my feeble efforts to the 
great number; yet I am aware of the fact that acquain¬ 
tance with an author interests us in his book and endears 
it to his friends, causing them to ponder and accept the 
truths stated therein that otherwise would be passed over 
and go unheeded. So if the putting of these simple ad¬ 
dresses in print may be used in helping one single soul 
to Jesus or encourage a wayward professor to consecra¬ 
tion, or inspire a faithful Christian to more noble service, 
I shall be glad and count the effort worth while. 

I am not claiming originality for these messages, for I 
have gathered material from all sources: from those I 
have been privileged to listen to and from the many 
books I have read. I have come to believe anyway that 
there are only two original beings, namely, God and the 
Devil, and that all the rest of us are imitators. I am 
absolutely sure of this, that this world is lost and needs 
a Saviour. It is not merely an ignorant world needing 
to be educated, but is both ignorant and lost and without 



hope except in Jesus Christ. “God made foolish the 
wisdom of this world, for the world by wisdom knew not 
God, but it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching 
to save them that believe.” 

I am convinced that many of the most learned people 
in the world’s wisdom are not only ignorant of real 
wisdom but are hopelessly lost and blinded by the wisdom 
they think they have. 

It is my earnest prayer that every one who reads these 
pages may accept Jesus as Saviour and acknowledge Him 
as Lord and be good imitators of Him in word and deed 
for the rest of this little inch of time we have to live. 
I have preached these sermons many times and they 
have been blessed to thousands. If God sees fit to spare 
me I hope to preach them many more times and will 
count it a privilege to have the opportunity to do so. 

Yours “made nigh ~by the blood of Christ 

Ernest G. Crabill. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Meeting Jesus.9 

Our Guiding Star.23 

Power.35 

New Birth.51 

What is a Christian?.73 

A Modern Judas ...... 91 

Satan ’s Sieve .105 

The Battle of Life .125 

Ambassadors for Christ .141 

Ecclesiastical Hook-Worms .... 159 

Binding the Sacrifice . . . . .179 

The Second Coming of Christ .... 195 












MEETING JESUS 


The fifth chapter of Mark contains three splendid 
triplets. The first is Christ’s dealing with a man pos¬ 
sessed with a demon; the second with a woman dis¬ 
eased ; and the third with a child that was dead. Thus 
showing that He is Lord of demons, Lord of disease 
and Lord of death. He is also the man’s Christ, the 
woman’s Christ and the child’s Christ. 

In the first place, you see the man meeting Jesus; 
in the second, the woman touching Jesus; and in the 
third place, the girl touched by Jesus and walking with 
Him. 

I want to speak tonight about meeting Jesus and as 
I do I wonder how many of you have actually met Him. 

In the second verse we read “ there met him out of 
the tombs, a man. ’ ’ The tombs are the places of death, 
whether in the cemetery or in the prison, for death is 
a separation. This man is a representative character 
and a sample case of the Devil’s work. Just what he 
would do with all of us if he could have his way. 

I say a representative character on the authority of 
Ps. 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin 
did my mother conceive me,” and Eph. 2:1, “Andyou 
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and 
sins. ’ ’ 

This man was dead to friends, dead to society, dead 


10 


MEETING JESUS 


to all comfort. You can see written here, ruin, dis¬ 
cord, discontent and destruction in this man. He was 
naked, wounded, suffering and sad, a terror to the com¬ 
munity in which he lived. Night and day, he was cry¬ 
ing and cutting himself just as all sinners are night 
and day doing things that permanently injure them. 

When Human Effort Fails 

All human efforts had had their inning and had failed. 
They had bound him with fetters and with chains and 
he had burst them asunder. No man could tame him. 
An awful picture is this. The efforts to tame him may 
well represent the vows and pledge-signing of those who 
are working on reformation lines today. Many are 
hacking at the branches, but few are striking at the 
root. Reformation is stamping the rattles from the 
snake’s tail and he becomes more dangerous without 
them than with them. 

I stood on one side of a counter with a successful 
business man on the other. He said, “Mr. Crabill, 1 
have a good wife and two as beautiful little girls as God 
ever gave to man, but I have an awful habit and I would 
give my right hand if I could get rid of that habit.” 

Tears stood in his eyes; his voice was choked and I 
knew he meant every word he said. I knew his habit. 
About twice a year, after wrestling with the demon of 
drink for days, in spite of all he could do, he was driven 
by that appetite to leave his business and his family, 



MEETING JESUS 


11 


and go on a spree for days. He slept in bar rooms and 
in barns and seemed below tbe brute creation as he wal¬ 
lowed in the gutter. 

We who know nothing about the appetite cannot sym¬ 
pathize with him. He did not want to do it. He did 
not want to break his promise to his wife and disgrace 
his family, but he was under the control of that demon 
and I believe that nothing short of meeting Jesus and 
the manifestation of the power of God in his life could 
keep him from that appetite, from degradation and dis¬ 
grace in which he injured himself and his family too. 

The Demon of Cursing 

You may not have the demon of drink, but you may 
have the demon of blasphemy which causes you to blas¬ 
pheme that holy name which is above every name. 

After I was converted in Binghamton, N. Y., I went 
to work in a shop for the winter. I undertook the work 
of teaching a Bible class made up of the men there at 
the noon hour. The power of God’s Word was soon 
manifest in that shop. The men began to think and 
talk along religious lines. One awful swearing man 
thought of his life and his habit. He first made up his 
mind he would not swear where I was and then as he 
thought it was the worst habit he had, he ,made up his 
mind to stop it entirely. 

He had not sworn for a week when he was on his way 
home from the shop. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he 



12 


MEETING JESUS 


was blind in one eye. Crossing the main street for his 
home, he was struck by a man on a bicycle from the 
Lestershire shoe factory. 

He was knocked down and he told me that when he 
was getting up he was swearing until you could hear 
him blocks away. When he gathered himself together 
and started on, he thought of what he had done. He 
had sworn and broken his pledge, and then and there 
he decided that if he ever got rid of the swear demon 
he must have outside power. He made a new vow that 
he would accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour. I have 
never felt sorry that he was run into by the bicycle, 
but I wish some of the rest of you fellows would get 
run into; that is, if it would produce the same kind of 
results. 

You may not have the demon of drink or the demon 
of blasphemy but you may have the demon of a bad 
temper, a temper that makes you a terror in your home 
and in your community, a temper that always keeps you 
in trouble. 

In Danville, Pa., while passing through the saloons 
one Saturday night with a pastor, passing out cards for 
a men’s meeting, I met a man at the bar drinking and 
I talked to him. I didn’t know that he had the demon 
of a bad temper. I didn’t know that he was parted from 
his wife. I didn’t know a divorce case was pending in 
court, but in the men’s meeting the next day, that man 
was converted. 



MEETING JESUS 


13 


The demon was cast out, the procedure in court was 
withdrawn, and the wife’s forgiveness was asked and 
received. They were living together again before I left. 
He was at the train at four o’clock in the morning to 
bid me good-bye and to thank me again for what had 
been done for him and his home. 

Friend, meeting Jesus works wonders. I do not know 
anything equal to it. You may not have these demons, 
you may have all of these and others. 

And His Name was Legion 

This man said his name was Legion for there were 
many. I think I have met some like him in my time. 
This man felt his unworthiness and thought only of the 
judgment of a righteous God. 

He could not understand His love. If he had, he 
would not have said, “I adjure thee by God that thou 
torment me not.” Just like every sinner, thinking only 
of the punishment that they know should come because 
of their sins and rebellion, but, friend, if you knew the 
loving, compassionate heart of the Son of God, you would 
not think of Him in that way. He delights in mercy 
and is not willing that any should perish, “but that all 
should come to repentance.” 

In Cuba, N. Y., while holding meetings there, we were 
asked to call upon a woman one morning who wanted 
to talk with us. Wife and I made our way to the house, 
finding a woman prematurely gray, with a very sad face, 



14 


MEETING JESUS 


who told me she had been in our meetings and felt she 
wanted to open her heart to me, and I listened to her 
story. 

She said, ‘ ‘ This is not our home; we have a nice home 
down in Pennsylvania. We have a boy, an only child/ ’ 
and then she began to cry. The next was told in the 
midst of sobs. She said, “When he was twelve or thir¬ 
teen years old, he ran away from home. We located 
him and brought him back. We do not know why he 
did it. There was certainly no reason for it for we 
love our boy. He promised not to do it again, but in 
a year or two he did the same thing again and we found 
him and brought him home again; and again he prom¬ 
ised he would not do it any more, but later he ran away 
again. 

“We found him near here but we could not get him 
to come home again. I worried about it day and night. 
I dreamed about him. I have gotten up and gone to 
the door in the night, thinking I heard him calling, only 
to be disappointed. I have looked longingly down the 
street for his return but he would not come. I had no 
gray hairs when this happened, but you see my hair is 
white. I had splendid health, but my health is gone as 
you see. 

“This is not our home. I said to my husband, ‘Hus¬ 
band, if we cannot get our boy to come home, let us 
move as near him as we can/ and we rented our place 
and came here. Husband is working in a shop here. 




MEETING JESUS 


15 


Our boy is on a farm out of town but he won’t come 
home. I want you to pray that God may intervene.” 

I prayed as best I could and as we walked down the 
street I said, '‘Wife, there is the best picture of God 
I have ever had. ’ ’ The sinner has gone away from God, 
and doesn’t want anything to do with God; but God 
became incarnate, took upon Himself a body and in the 
person of Jesus Christ came, lived among us, suffered 
and died upon the cross to atone for our sins that He 
might get near to us. It doesn’t matter how deep down 
in sin you have gone, you may have the blood of a harlot 
in your veins or the appetite for drink born in you, but 
the Christ that I am preaching is equal to the occasion 
and can save from any degeneracy. 

You never heard a man say, “I was a great sinner 
until I graduated from the university, or until I mas¬ 
tered my trade or studied science or became familiar 
with Huxley or Darwin,” but you have heard men say, 
“I was a great sinner until I met Jesus.” 

The Unavoidable Christ 

Let me say that Christ is the unavoidable Christ. He 
will cross your path and you will meet Him some place, 
some time. We read in John 20 that the disciples had 
locked the door because of fear of the Jews, but Jesus 
came and stood in their midst. You may lock the 
door of your reason and the door of your heart, but you 



16 


MEETING JESUS 


can’t keep Him away. He will cross your path; you 
must meet Him some time, somewhere. 

There were two classes that met Him this morning: 
the demon possessed man, a bad case; and the hog rais¬ 
ers. Nothing much is said about these hog raisers only 
that they were in the hog business. The hog business 
was disallowed in Palestine and Jesus is hard on any 
illegitimate business. 

These men may have been moral, good to their fam¬ 
ilies and honest in their dealings, but they thought more 
of their hogs than they did of Jesus and their souls and 
they prayed Him to, depart out of their coasts. 

The hog business is a dirty business. Some men today 
will not neglect their hogs but they will neglect their 
souls. Many a clean, moral man has prayed Christ to 
depart from him. 

The demon-possessed man fell at His feet and wor¬ 
shipped Him. Jesus cast out the demon, clothed him in 
his right mind and immediately he wanted to follow 
Him. That is quite natural. The way with many is 
that they are trying to follow before the demon is cast 
out, and they fail. When the demon is gone, it is natural 
to follow Jesus. Jesus commissioned him immediately 
to preach the gospel. He sent him home to tell his 
friends what He had done for him. That is exactly what 
every man will do that is clothed in his right mind and 
has had the Devil cast out of him. 



MEETING JESUS 


17 


Have You Met Jesus? 

Have you met Jesus? Some met Him in the syna¬ 
gogue, the place of worship. That is the expected place. 
Luke 4:16, “As his custom was he went into the syna¬ 
gogue on the Sabbath / 9 

Some met Him at the wedding, John 2:2, “the joyful 
place of life”; some met Him at the funeral, the sad 
place in life, as the widow of Nain did in Luke 7 :11. 

Some met Him on the seashore, the business place of 
life, as Peter, James and John did in Matt. 4:16. 

Where did you meet Him ? Have you met Him ? Did 
you pray to Him to depart out of your coasts because 
you were afraid He would be hard on something you 
love now? 

In Union, Pa., I was holding a series of tent meetings. 
One evening, I was out calling on a Scotch sailor. On 
my way home, just at dark, I met a man who said to 
me, “Mr. Crabill, they have been trying to find you all 
the afternoon.” 

I said, “Who?” 

He said, “There is a man, one of the best educated 
men in the city, an architect, an awful drinking man, 
who is trying to sober up and he wants to see you.” 

1 ‘ Take me to him ,’ 9 I replied. 

I met a man about my own age with about two weeks * 
growth of beard and blood-shot eyes. He told me he 
took from forty to sixty drinks of whiskey a day and 



18 


MEETING JESUS 


was unable to go and handle his men. He said he had 
left Pittsburgh where he could get $2.00 an hour for 
his services just to get away from drink. “I have tried 
everything/’ he said, “but can get no relief.” 

Taking the Christ Cure 

I asked him if he had ever tried the “Christ cure” 
and he said he had not, but if there was anything in 
Christianity that could save him and make a man out 
of him he wanted it. I gave him the clue and prayed 
with him, called in his wife and told her what he had 
done, and said to him, “I want you to come to the tent 
tonight and come forward and put yourself on record 
for Christ.” He came and took his stand. The next 
night he was back, with a clean shaven face and a white 
shirt on and looked like a different man. 

A few weeks later when I stopped at Spartansburg for 
a few nights’ meetings, while passing through that dis¬ 
trict, the mayor of Union City and that man drove twelve 
miles to get into the meetings and both testified from 
the same platform to the saving power of Christ. He 
is in Erie, Pa., now, doing well. God did not only save 
him, but put him in the very best society in the com¬ 
munity. 

When God saves, He imparts to us the Divine nature 
after casting out the demons and immediately sets about 
to develop the very best that is within us. There is 
oftentimes talent that lies dormant in a man that no 



MEETING JESUS 


19 


one would suspect was -there until God gets to work in 
the man’s life, and I doubt not but there are great pos¬ 
sibilities in us all, undeveloped. 

And They Met Jesus 

Saul met Jesus on the Damascus road and the bigoted, 
persecuting Jew became the apostle Paul, and you can 
never explain the change with your philosophy and 
scientific theories. There is but one explanation of his 
transformed life—he met Jesus. 

John Bunyan, the swearing tinker (who said when he 
began to swear the neighbors trembled), became a 
mighty force for righteousness and wrote a book that has 
been read more widely than any other book except the 
Bible. You cannot explain the change in any other w r ay 
than that he “met Jesus.” 

John Newton, the filthy, vile sailor, became John 
Newton the poet and preacher. You cannot explain the 
change in any way, only he “met Jesus.” 

George Whitfield at one time sold beer from behind 
his brother’s counter, but was transformed from a bar¬ 
tender into one of the greatest preachers this world has 
ever known and you can’t explain the transformation 
only in one way. ‘ ‘ He met J esus. ’ ’ 

D. L. Moody was a shoe clerk in a Boston store without 
schooling and seemingly without natural ability for an 
evangelist, but his name has been upon nearly every¬ 
one’s lips and it is said he led a million souls to Christ. 




20 


MEETING JESUS 


There is only one explanation of that wonderful life and 
that is, “He met Jesus/’ 

Have you ever listened to the great gypsy preacher? 
I heard him say that he went to school only four weeks 
in all his life; yet he is sought for by the brightest, edu¬ 
cated and cultured audiences. There is but one explana¬ 
tion of him, Jesus walked through a gypsy camp, laid 
His hand upon that boy, and what might have been a 
thieving gypsy horse trader is one of the greatest evan¬ 
gelists of the world today. He met Jesus. 

What changed an ambitious ball player with only a 
burning desire to make money and gain notoriety into 
a man that was willing to say good-bye to it all and give 
his life to plead with people to accept Jesus and be 
saved? There is only one explanation that I know; he 

met Jesus Christ. 

/ 

You ask the missionaries why they say good-bye to 
father, loved ones and home comforts to go into heathen 
lands and suffer and perhaps die. They will answer, 
because we met Jesus and love Him and delight to do 
His will. Love delights in sacrifice. When once you 
meet Jesus and fall in love with Him, you will delight 
to sacrifice for Him. God loved, He gave, He sacrificed. 
When we love we will be willing to make sacrifices. It 
is the sacrifice of love, and love gets greater pleasure 
out of the sacrifices it makes than in withholding from 
Him. Then you will never say, when once you have 



MEETING JESUS 


21 


fallen in love with Him, “Will I have to give this up?” 
but you will say, “May I do it?” 

Do you know Him and are you acquainted with that 
kind of love? If not, come then and let me introduce 
you to Jesus tonight. Do it now. 




















\ 


/ 



OUR GUIDING STAR 


Matt. 2:1-2, “ Behold there came wise men from the 
east to Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born King 
of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and 
are come to worship Him. ’ ’ 

They had the right purpose in mind; they were look¬ 
ing for Him that they might worship. They were look¬ 
ing for light and inquiring for truth and were called 
wise men. 

Prov. 1:7 says, “Fools despise wisdom.’’ Herod and 
the chief priests saw no star, although the star was there 
just the same. They did not have the right motive and 
they saw no light. God always sends a star to the wise 
man, but the star the wise man sees is not seen by the 
fool for he despises wisdom. 

We would expect God to cast much in our pathway 
to help us to see and understand when there is so much 
at stake as our soul’s eternal salvation and to the wise 
man who will open his eyes and look it becomes a more 
difficult problem to disbelieve than to believe, in my 
mind. 

With all the light and guiding stars about us, it is 
hard for me to understand how any intelligent person 
can be an unbeliever. There is darkness about us, I 
know; but stars shine in the darkness and when the 
darkness begins to settle then the stars begin to appear. 


24 


MEETING JESUS 


I cannot tell why the point of the compass needle 
always points north, but I know it does, and thousands 
of lives and millions of dollars worth of merchandise 
are being risked every day upon the oceans as they are 
guided by this little needle and sometimes by the north 
star. God gave them for this purpose and they guide 
them safely through. 

Likewise upon the sea of life, God has given a guiding 
star to guide us safely to our desired haven if we will 
steer by that star. I know there is a light that shines 
steadily on; some see it, some seem not to see it. 

There is a voice that is speaking; some hear it, some 
seem not to hear it. There is a hand that some feel, 
others seem not to feel, but it is there nevertheless. 

The wise men looked and saw the star. It was there 
and others could have seen it if they had looked, but 
they did not look. There is light for all today, if they 
will look; but some seem so interested that they will 
not look. 

There are some guiding stars that I would like to call 
your attention to tonight, and as I do I hope you may 
see the glimmer of the light and follow it until you are 
led into the full blaze of the true light that lighteth 
every man. 

Proofs of Christianity 

The first is the fact of the calendar of the civilized 
world, which dates as you all know from the birth of a 



OUR GUIDING STAR 


25 


poor Jew, supposed to be a Galilean peasant by many. 
He wrote no book, He built no temple, He died the death 
of a criminal when He had hardly reached the prime of 
life—crucified between two thieves. 

Has it not seemed strange to you that we of the great 
civilized world in going back for a starting point for 
our calendar should choose one that died the death of a 
criminal? “Numbered with the transgressors.” Why 
did we not take some of the worldly great like Alexander 
or Cassar or Socrates? 

Plato was a great teacher and his writings are still 
studied. Socrates was a wonderful philosopher and is 
still looked upon with admiration. Why did we not use 
some of the great battles that changed the history of the 
world? I believe we did try that. I guess few people 
know it, but I believe we did start a calendar from both 
the battles of Pharsalia and Actium, but they faded into 
nothing, while Jesus loomed up like a mighty pyramid 
before the world, that could not be forgotten or blotted 
out of remembrance. 

While Others Grow Dim 

Other historical characters seem to grow dim with 
years, but Jesus seems to grow brighter and brighter. 
Others founded their religions and died; but Jesus 
founded His religion and while He died He rose again 
from the dead. He is the only one that ever did and 
all civilization is baptized in the name of Jesus. 



26 


MEETING JESUS 


Every newspaper, even though its columns may be 
filled with criticisms and blasphemous remarks concern¬ 
ing Him and His followers, is forced to acknowledge Him 
and put the date of His birth at the head of every page. 
Every infidel that signs a note is forced to date it from 
the birth of Jesus. Every atheist that indorses a check 
has to do it in the name of Jesus. He can’t get a dollar 
out of the bank in this place without acknowledging the 
fact of the Christ. He must write the date of His birth. 

Every letter that is penned away to a friend or ene¬ 
my carries with it the date of the birth of Christ. 

Who started this calendar and when was it begun? 
I suppose educated people would immediately reply that 
it must have been Constantine,; but if they do they are 
mistaken, for Constantine died in 316 A. D. and the 
calendar that we use today in the civilized world was 
not started until five centuries later, long enough for 
a mere Galilean peasant to be forgotten entirely, was it 
not? 

For the Living Christ 

I wonder how many of us will be remembered after 
we have been dead for eight hundred years. It seems to 
me, we have here an unanswerable argument concerning 
the Christ. Nothing but the power of God could have 
exalted Him and given Him a name that was above 
every name, and to the wise man who is looking for light 




OUR GUIDING STAR 


27 


this would be a guiding star to guide him to the place 
of salvation. 

I want to call your attention to a second fact which 
is a guiding star that will give us light for our erring 
feet, for it “is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto 
our path,” Ps. 119:105. It is the Bible, the written 
Word of God. It is either a fact or a fraud. It is either 
divine history or a dream. It exists and is doing a work 
that none can deny. It is transforming lives. It is an 
instrument that is being used in the salvation of drunk¬ 
ards, harlots, and sinners from every walk in life. Some 
explanation must be given for it. The unbeliever is 
frequently asking us to explain. 

The Bible God’s Word 

I will ask you to explain the wonder working power 
back of this old book. Who wrote it? If they were 
fools how did they come to dream loftier wisdom than 
wise men? What art did these rogues use to invent the 
greatest force for righteousness that this world has ever 
known ? 

If you agree that Moses, David, Christ and Paul never 
lived, it becomes a more wonderful book still, for how 
could you have the law without the law giver? How 
could you have the Psalms without a Psalmist? Who 
invented the Sermon on the Mount, or gave to us the 
parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son? 
Who created the Christian religion? What was his 



28 


MEETING JESUS 


motive? Was Christ an impostor? If He was, He took 
a strange course. He taught that the course He was tak¬ 
ing would bring Him to suffering and death. He cer¬ 
tainly never reached out as other impostors for earthly 
gain. What was His object? 

We hear now that Shakespeare did not write Shakes¬ 
peare. If he did not, some one had to impersonate 
him and then impose upon us the writings equal to 
Shakespeare, and to do this he had to be greater than 
Shakespeare, for he must keep under cover while he was 
doing it. 

I say this about the Word of God: if it is an imposi¬ 
tion, it took a personage equal to or greater than God 
to impose it upon us. There is none equal to God and 
no book equal to the one we call the Bible. 

Look at the writings of the Apostle Paul. Where will 
you find their equal in church instruction? Nothing 
like it is to be found. There is only one conclusion we 
can come to and it is this—that the old Book is a guiding 
star to guide us to Jesus. There is no answering its 
arguments. It has stood the test and like its Author, 
grows brighter with time. 

A Third Guiding Star 

There is a third star that shines in this world today, 
and that is the fact of Christian experience. Does 
Christian experience count for nothing with you? Is 
it of no account that men we know to be honest and 



OUR GUIDING STAR 


29 


upright in every walk of life will stand and testify that 
they have tasted and found the Lord to be good and 
know that there is a reality in the saving power of 
Christ? Are these people deceived or are they honest 
about everything else but lying about religion? 

Does it mean nothing to you that the head of every 
college in this country except one is a Christian man? 
If we were looking for brains certainly we would expect 
to find them at the heads of our colleges. Look at the 
testimony there then to the Christian religion. 

Take such men as our President Wilson. He is a 
Christian man; does it count nothing with you? Take 
our Vice President, Marshall. One of the strongest 
sermons that I have read was preached by him at a camp 
meeting. Look at W. J. Bryan. He is chairman of the 
Board of Trustees at Winona Lake Bible Conference. 
He is a mighty defender of the Christian religion. 

Think of William McKinley when he died in Buffalo 
with the words, “Not my will, but Thine be done,” and 
then lisped, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” When they 
took his body to the railroad station at Buffalo, the band 
that marched in the procession played “Nearer, My God, 
to Thee.” The great crowds that assembled at the sta¬ 
tions along the line as the train made its way to Wash¬ 
ington sang “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” The band that 
led the funeral procession up Pennsylvania Avenue in 
Washington played “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” They 
took him to his old home in Canton, Ohio, and there the 



30 


MEETING JESUS 


band played the same sacred tune. There had gathered 
the great men of the country to pay their last respects 
to our dead president, and the great majority of that 
crowd were earnest Christian men. Does this count for 
nothing with you? 

Let me say once more on this point of Christian ex¬ 
perience that the masses of people in this old world at 
the present time who stand for decency, testify to the 
saving power of Christ, and acknowledge their faith in 
the inspiration of the Bible. I believe this testimony 
to be a guiding star to all wise men who look for light. 

Their Dying Testimony 

The fourth and last star to which I wish to call your 
attention tonight is the dying testimony of saints and 
sinners. We cling to the last words our friends say 
when they come to die, and these ought to be worth 
something to us in this time. 

The noted infidel Voltaire said to the doctor when he 
came to die that he would give him all he had if he would 
spare his life for six months. 

The doctor replied, “My man, time is in the hands of 
God, not in my hands. I must say to you that you will 
not live six hours.’’ 

This seemed to anger him and he said to the doctor, 
“I will die and go to hell and you will go with me.” 
Those were the last words of the noted infidel. 



OUR GUIDING STAR 


31 


Hobs, the English infidel, said when he came to die, 
“lam taking a leap into the dark.” 

King Philip of Spain said, “I wish I had never 
lived,” and in the same moment he said, “No, I wish I 
had lived, but that I had lived a different life.” 

King Charles IX of France, who gave the order for 
the massacre at St. Bartholomew, in which 30,000 people 
were slain and the blood literally ran down the streets, 
said when he came to die, “Oh, how will it all end? 
Blood, blood, rivers of blood,” and he leaped into 
eternity without God and without hope. 

The Death of Wesley 

When John Wesley came to die, he whispered, “I 
shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness,” and 
the last word was, “The best of all, God is with us.” 
He had stood beside the death beds of many of his fol¬ 
lowers and when he came away he said, “Our people 
die well.” 

The great D. L. Moody said, “Earth is receding; 
heaven is opening. This is my coronation day,” and 
he slipped from earth into heaven. 

Frances E. Willard said, “How beautiful to die and 
be with God. ” 

Florence A. Foster said to her mother as she sat by 
her bedside, “Mother, the hilltops are covered with 
angels that beckon me to come; I bid you good-bye.” 

It would seem to me if we had no others, that the 



32 


MEETING JESUS 


fact of the testimonies that are left behind by those who 
have stepped out of this life into another would be a 
guiding star that would give us the light and bring us 
to Jesus. 

Are you honest and in earnest and are you seeking 
to see the light that you may find Him? “In Thy light 
shall we see light, ’ ’ Ps. 36:9. If we follow the glim¬ 
mer of the light of the star that comes we will have 
more light for that will lead us to the true light that 
lighteth every way. 

Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world, 
he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of life. ? ’ The light of the star will 
lead you to the Son of righteousness, and you will find 
Him who was born not only King of the Jews, but was 
born to be the Saviour of this old world, your Saviour 
and my Saviour. 


How Bushnell Led 

Some years ago, Horace Bushnell was the most popu¬ 
lar professor in Yale College, but he was a skeptic or a 
free thinker, and being a natural leader of men, the 
students were following him in this course of life. 
Horace Bushnell got into a revival meeting conducted 
by an evangelist that made him serious and caused him 
to think. He came home from the service one night 
and sat down to think. When a man sits down to think 
he is on the road to help him live where his life will 



OUR GUIDING STAR 


33 


count for the very most. As he sat in his chair think¬ 
ing, something seemed to say to him, 1 ‘ Horace Bushnell, 
what do you believe anyway ?” and he thought a time 
and answered, “I believe in an eternal difference be¬ 
tween right and wrong/ ’ Then something said to him, 
“Will you take your stand from this time on always on 
the side which you believe to be right ?” He thought 
for a time and said, “I will.” 

The next night he was found in the meeting again, and 
the particular line of truth that was presented seemed 
to cut him to the very quick, and he was led to see that to 
stand for right he could do nothing else but become 
identified with Christ and His cause. He flinched a little 
bit, but when the crucial test came, he had manhood 
enough to be true to his vow, and Horace Bushnell got 
out of his seat and walked down the aisle and six hun¬ 
dred of the students of Yale College followed him into 
the Kingdom. 

Friends, the light has come to you. God has given 
you a star to guide you to Christ. Will you follow it 
tonight? If you will, I believe there are others that 
will follow you into the Kingdom as the students did 
Horace Bushnell. 




POWER 


Luke 9:43, “They were all amazed at the mighty 
power of God.” 

Man has always coveted power; has attempted to lay 
hands on it wherever it had been found and utilize it for 
his own good. 

He saw the ox, with his massive shoulders and great 
strength, and he put a yoke upon him and forced him 
into service, and for years has been utilizing his power 
for his own good. But the ox has been too slow for the 
nervous temperament of man, and he saw the horse, 
with his beautiful arched neck and graceful movement, 
his strength and endurance, which was more adapted to 
his own temperaments; so he caught him by the fore¬ 
lock, thrust a bit into his teeth and he became domesti¬ 
cated and has been willingly giving his power to the 
needs of humanity. I suppose at first the man saw the 
power of the wind in leveling the forests, or blowing 
down his house, or blowing his hat away, or he may have 
felt it in rowing his boat against a stiff wind, and he 
said there is power in that wind, and if I could harness 
that wind up I could make it work for me and utilize 
that power. So he proceeded to search for means to use 
that power. He may have first stood up in his boat and 
used his back for a sail, but he was quick to see that more 
sail would bring more power, and in a little while he 


36 


MEETING JESUS 


had a large vessel driven by the winds across the briny 
deep. He could not use a sail boat inland, away from 
the ocean, so he struck upon the scheme of using a wind 
engine or windmill, and made it pump his water and 
grind his grain. 

He felt the great weight of water in the stream as 
he waded from shore to shore, and watched the power 
of the rushing torrent as it swept everything before it, 
and said, “Oh, what power there is in that! Why can 
I not harness that power up and use it to an advantage 
for the good and need of humanity?” Immediately he 
set about to make a waterwheel and began to use 
that waterpower to grind his grain and saw his boards, 
and has now harnessed Niagara and makes it furnish 
the power to light half of New York State. 

Isaac Watts sat by the fire, dreaming and watching the 
tea kettle lid rise and fall as the steam formed from the 
boiling water, and said to himself, ‘ ‘ There is wonderful 
power in that, and if it could be confined in a boiler it 
might be used to work for man.” He set about imme¬ 
diately to harness it up and as a result we have the 
steam engine and the powerful locomotive pulling our 
trains at sixty miles an hour and drawing strings of 
freight cars across the continent. 

I do not know just how it happened, but somehow, 
some fellow found there was unlimited power tied up 
in a liquid we call gasoline. Maybe he had an explo¬ 
sion, and when he came back to earth he said, “I have 



POWER 


37 


made a discovery; if I can harness that stuff up it is 
just what the world needs, and I will pull their car¬ 
riages and wagons by the use of it. ’ ’ At once he began 
working on a device for using this powerful explosive 
fluid. He made a cylinder, arranged an exhaust, and 
got an intake valve, piston and crankshaft, also a thing 
he called a carburetor, to mix a spray of gasoline with 
air; then an electric spark to set the thing off at the 
right time, and he had an old one-lunger, snapping and 
cracking away. He tied it on to his buggy and went 
down the street, everybody looking at him, until he ran 
into a telegraph pole, and the horses he was trying to 
discard came out and took him to the hospital. But he 
was out and at it again in a little while, and soon had 
two cylinders instead of one, so he could have more 
power, for he had found that with one he had been com¬ 
pelled to push going up hill. In a little while he said, 
this is too jerky, so he added a couple more cylinders, 
and he has kept on adding cylinders until he has six, 
eight and twelve; and moves quietly and gracefully 
about the streets, up hills, and skips over the roads and 
through the country in his luxurious carriages by the 
use of this power, and just as fast as he cares to go. 

God asked Job if he could harness the lightning, and 
the poor old patriarch must have been troubled, for they 
had literally consumed his sheep and servants, and he 
had no doubt watched it flash across the skies and strike 
the great trees to the ground and I think a shudder came 



38 


MEETING JESUS 


over him at the very thought of the thing. But re¬ 
cently, almost in our day, Benjamin Franklin caught it 
by the forelock and thrust a bit into its teeth; a little 
while later Mr. Morse came along, threw the harness on 
and buckled the bellyband; later Thomas Edison picked 
up the reins, and has been driving it wherever he pleases; 
thus it has become so docile that even our children play 
with it in the present time. 

Have you thought of personal power, or the power 
that man has over himself? A man sets about to get 
rich, and you cannot keep him out of it. Look at An¬ 
drew Carnegie, on the streets, a poor boy, gathering up 
a few pennies here and there, but he got an idea that 
he ought to make his money work for him, so he put 
the dollar working for him, and when he got another he 
made that one work for him, until he became one of the 
richest men in the world. That is power to get wealth. 
John D. Rockefeller was born in a small house, almost 
a shanty, in New York State. But by the use of his 
power to get wealth he became the richest man in the 
world. 

Look at man’s power to get an education. If he sets 
his heart on it he will have it. I know a man who went 
to Syracuse University without any money and with a 
terrible deformity. He walked like a drunken man and 
twisted his face all out of shape when he tried to talk. 
The authorities tried to get rid of him and to discourage 
him in his undertaking, and made excuses because he 



POWER 


39 


had no money, but he said, 11 1 have come to get an edu¬ 
cation, and I am not going to leave this institution until 
I get it.” Today that man is one of the best Greek 
scholars in the country. 

You take a man whose heart is set on becoming a 
public speaker; nothing can keep him from it. Demos¬ 
thenes, the orator of Greece, overcame physical disad¬ 
vantages that would have destroyed all hopes in most 
men. He had a weak voice, shortness of breath, in¬ 
distinct articulation, and was not a natural speaker, but 
in spite of all disadvantages he became the greatest of 
Grecian orators. 

Take a man who is set on becoming a real Christian; 
he will live a Christ-like life, no power can defeat him. 
There is no end to the illustrations that may be found 
concerning this; God desires it, and when man wills it 
it will be done. 

Look at relative power or man’s power over one 
another. Some people seem to have what we call a per¬ 
sonal magnetism. This may be intensified, of course, by 
the Spirit of God, if one is a real Christian. But some 
that are not Christians have wonderful power. You see 
a politician near election time with a smile and hand¬ 
shake that becomes an outlet for his power, and even 
though you have declared you would never vote for him, 
you are swung into line by this special power he has, and 
you march down to the polls and vote for him, and after 
you are out from under the spell you kick yourself for 



40 


MEETING JESUS 


doing it. Yet he swings you into line again at the next 
election. 

A great evangelist went into a mill in Utica, N. Y., 
some years ago, and just looked at the girls who were 
working there, and some of them broke down and began 
to cry. The owners and most of the employees were con¬ 
verted. His power, of course, was intensified by the 
Spirit of God. 

Take the power of love. A young man falls in love 
with a girl. There is no end to the things that fellow 
will resort to in order to show her a good time, and thus 
express his love. A young woman falls in love with a 
young man, and she would go through fire and water 
and suffer for the one she loves. You see nature at its 
best in a good woman, and the devil at his best in a 
worldly one. This power of love extends from the man 
to the animal, and from the animal up to man. My 
wife’s father had a dog that sat by his window and 
howled when he was dying, and howled for days after¬ 
ward; finally he was missed and they found him in an 
old well on the farm; the family believe he committed 
suicide. 

When an evangelist was asked to come and conduct 
the funeral exercises of a little boy in a family that had 
been blessed under his ministry, down in Tennessee, he 
said they bridled and saddled the Shetland pony that 
belonged to the boy, of which he was very fond, and 
brought it out to go in the funeral procession. When 



POWER 


41 


they carried the casket from the house to the hearse, 
the pony came up to the coffin and put his nose up to 
it and followed the hearse all the way to the cemetery, 
without a leader. He stood and looked down into the 
grave when they lowered his master, and when the sexton 
began to shovel in the dirt on the box lid, the pony began 
to paw the dirt back from the grave with his little feet. 
Love is power. 

Then think of the diabolic power, or the power of 
the devil. He will come into a home and destroy the 
peace and happiness that is there. He can take the life 
of a boy or girl and ruin it, making them a disgrace to 
decent society. He can manufacture a lie and spread 
it in the community, and have the neighbors at swords' 
points. He can reach up pretty high and lay hold upon 
a man and drag him down to the lowest depths. Dr. 
Chapman tells of listening to a preacher, in one of our 
southern states, who moved him more than any man he 
ever listened to. He said, as he sat in the pew and lis¬ 
tened, he laughed, he wept, and almost shouted at times. 
At the close of the service he said he went down to the 
front and shook the man’s hand and thanked him for 
the message, and told him that he was in a position to 
help him to a better pulpit than the one he had. After 
a few years had passed, he said, he was holding meetings 
in a certain city in the North and there came a rap at 
his door and he, thinking it was one of his workers, said, 



42 


MEETING JESUS 


“Come in,” but he kept on reading his book, having his 
back to the door. 

He waited for the one who opened the door to speak, 
but he said nothing, and he said he turned around and 
there stood one of the dirtiest bums he had ever looked 
upon; no collar, little clothing, worn-out shoes, bloodshot 
eyes, long hair, had not been shaved in a long time, and 
he stared at him and said, ‘ ‘ Mister, lend me two dollars. ’ 1 

Dr. Chapman said, “I thought if ever there was a man 
that needed two dollars, that was the man, and without 
hesitating I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out 
two dollars and handed it to him. He turned around 
without thanking me, and slammed the door as he went. 
I sat thinking of the picture and trying to remember 
where I had seen a face that resembled that one, and I 
heard the footsteps of the man coming back. He opened 
the door, stuck his head through, and said, ‘ Mister, I 
thank you for this/ and was gone. As he did I recog¬ 
nized the very man who had moved me from the plat¬ 
form as no other man had ever done.” 

It is terrible to think of how high up the devil can 
reach and of his power to pull down. He can get a hold 
of a man and make him oppose his best interests and 
fight against his best friends. He seems to be able to 
keep men from coming to Christ, when they should. In 
Towanda, Pa., a man came into our meetings and was 
under conviction and was talked to by a friend. He 




POWER 


43 


acknowledged that he was interested, and said, “I am 
expecting to take my stand for Christ.” 

His friend urged upon him to do it then. He said, 
“No, not tonight, but I will be here tomorrow night and 
will go with you then, if you will come after me.” He 
lived out of town a few miles, down toward Standing 
Stone. He went out the next evening to hitch up his 
horse to come to the meeting. He had hitched up one 
side and went around on the other side and dropped 
dead. The devil had kept him from coming the night 
before, and now it was too late. Oh, the power of the 
devil is something awful in turning people away from 
doing right. 

But there is a greater power still than this I have 
spoken about, and it is the power of God or Divine 
Power. I think of God’s power in creation of this uni¬ 
verse, and His power of manipulation; and when I do, 
I am convinced that He can manipulate the affairs of my 
life for my best interests, if I will let Him. Nor will 
He let me fail or fall. When I look upon God’s power 
of salvation in saving sinful man, it looks like Divine 
Power at its best, for I know that Jesus Christ has power 
upon earth to forgive sins, and that He has devil-con¬ 
quering power. Hence, in our text, Jesus broke the 
power of the devil, cast out the demon, and delivered the 
boy. Here is a delivered boy and a happy father. 
Father, if your boy is under the power of the devil, 
bring him to Jesus, for He and He alone can deliver him. 



44 


MEETING JESUS 


A man leads a better life and the world calls it evolu¬ 
tion; he stops swearing and they call it hypnotism; he 
gives up licentiousness and they call it psychology; the 
prostitute is saved and they call it science. Will we ever 
come to the place where we will stop our blasphemy and 
give God the credit due Him for His mercy, love and 
power ? 

A man who worked with me in a certain city told me 
of his experience in being saved from drink. He was a 
workman in a steel mill. He had tried to break off from 
drink time and time again, but failed. He joined the 
church and kept his vow for a time, but went back to 
drink again. By and by, under religious influences, he 
was persuaded to take a bold stand for Christ, and he 
went on well for a time, until one day he said, when it 
was very hot, the old thirst for drink came back. He 
was getting in a little extra time and had made some 
extra money and he said he wanted a glass of beer the 
worst way. The devil said to him that one glass 
wouldn’t hurt him and that he had made some extra 
money and that, if spent, it would not interfere with his 
regular pay. When he finished work he was having an 
awful fight. He started for home. He had been in the 
habit of going up through the school yard, but they had 
been plowing that up and dragging it, to seed it in 
grass. It had rained some that day and the devil said 
it would be too soft to go that way this evening, and 
that he would have to go up around the comer by the 



POWER 


45 


saloon, and he said he felt a mighty power pulling him 
that way; also, his throat was just cracking for a drink 
of beer. In his imagination he could see the bartender 
with his white apron on and the glass of beer with the 
foam and the little sparkling bubbles jumping from it, 
and could feel it going down his throat. As he got 
nearer some power like a great suction in the air was 
pulling him to the other side of the street, when he said 
he pulled up his coat collar so he could not see the saloon, 
ran as fast as he could up around the corner for a block, 
and was so tired that he had to sit down on the curb and 
rest. He said he panted like a lizard for a time, but 
from that time on the power of the devil was broken 
and he has never wanted a drink since. He was in ear¬ 
nest, and God’s power delivered him. 

I have read of an experience Mr. Finney had in a 
certain city. At the close of a meeting one evening a 
man came up and asked him if he would not go with 
him to his place of business; he said he wanted to talk 
with him, and Mr. Finney said he would. The fellow 
stood aside and waited for him. Someone stepped up 
and asked Mr. Finney if he had promised to go with 
that man, and he said he had. The man said, “Mr. 
Finney, I would not go. That man is the worst desper¬ 
ado in this community and he may be laying a scheme 
to do you harm.” 

Mr. Finney said, ”1 promised him I would go, and 



46 


MEETING JESUS 


I am a man of my word and I must go. I have confi¬ 
dence that my God will protect me, if I need protection. ’ 1 
When the crowd was gone, Mr. Finney took his Bible 
and walked out of the building and down the street with 
this man; turned down a dark alley, came to a door 
where the man thrust a key in the lock, opened the door 
and invited Mr. Finney in. He locked the door from 
the inside and turned on the light. They were in one of 
the notorious joints of the section. With a burning in 
his eye that was hard to diagnose and a pallor on his 
cheek symbolic of great internal commotion, he pulled a 
pistol from his pocket and said, ‘‘Mr. Finney, this pistol 
has killed four men while I held it and by proxy it has 
killed several others. Doubtless you know, sir, that you 
are in the den of the most murderous desperado in the 
country. I did not bring you in here, however, to harm 
you, but to ask if such a blood-guilty man can be saved .’ 1 

Mr. Finney quoted to him the text he had preached 
from that night, “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, 
cleanseth from all sin.” 

The man turned, picked up a greasy pack of cards 
and said, “Sir, through the use of these I have won or 
stolen thousands of dollars, and these have driven men 
to poverty, theft, murder and suicide; can your gospel 
reach such a man as that?” 

Mr. Finney quoted his text again, “The blood of Jesus 
Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin. ’ f 
The man took from the shelf a black bottle and said, 



POWER 


47 


“This bottle has held the poison that has drugged men 
in this place, while we have deliberately taken their 
money and thrown them out. Tell me, ought such a 
man to have forgiveness ? 7 7 

Mr. Finney said, “You present a dark picture, but I 
am only authorized as a servant of God to quote my text, 
‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all 
sin. 7 ” 

With increased concern depicted on his face this poor 
prisoner of sin, crime, and the devil, said, “I have ne¬ 
glected my family. I have beaten my precious wife who 
has been as true to me as an angel of God. I have lacked 
my own child about as if she were a beast. Now, sir, 
deal candidly with me and tell me, do you believe that 
such a profane, licentious, gambling, drunkard-making, 
wife-beating criminal has any right for mercy or grounds 
for hope? 77 

The ambassador of Christ said, “Sir, you have swung 
before me the darkest picture I have ever laid eyes upon, 
but I believe God’s Word that ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, 
His Son, cleanseth from all sin. 7 77 

Looking the preacher in the face for a time he opened 
the door and silently motioned him out. As he prayer¬ 
fully walked away he heard the door close and the lock 
click. Next morning broken bottles, dehooped barrels, 
destroyed cards, etc., could be found in the back alley, 
which told how that man had spent the remaining hours 
of the night. At breakfast time in the morning he 



48 


MEETING JESUS 


walked across the street and took his seat in his wife’s 
bedroom. 

His wife sent her namesake, Addie, a girl of eleven 
years, to tell him to come to breakfast. He said, ‘ 1 Addie, 
darling, tell your mamma papa doesn’t want any break¬ 
fast.” 

The little girl went running back, falling as she 
hurried to the kitchen, and exclaimed, “Oh, mamma, 
mamma, papa called me darling! ’ ’ 

After a few minutes she was sent to call him again. 
Again he said, “Darling, tell mamma papa doesn’t want 
any breakfast.” 

The little girl went flying back and said, ‘ ‘ Oh, mamma, 
I wasn’t mistaken; he did call me darling, he did.” 

After waiting a minute the wondering wife sent her 
the third time. She stopped in the doorway when her 
father motioned her to him and took her upon his knee 
and kissed her for the first time in his life. Soon the 
wife followed cautiously; and looking through the door¬ 
way he saw her and he motioned her to come, and pulling 
her down upon the other knee, he said, “My darling 
wife, it has been many years since you sat here, or re¬ 
ceived a caress or a kind word from me. This sweet 
little namesake of yours never had a kiss from me until 

I 

this morning. I know, wife, you do not know what this 
means, and I hardly know what it means myself, but, 
wife, I will need your help today as I have never needed 
it before. I have no barroom today; I have closed that 



POWER 


49 


hell-hole forever. I am going to sell most of my prop¬ 
erty, and draw on my bank account until I have righted 
every wrong as far as possible, and paid back mone> I 
have taken that was not mine. You wonder what it 
means; I cannot tell you all, but I can tell you this, you 
have a new husband this morning, your children have 
a new father this morning, this community has a new 
citizen, right has a new friend, and the devil has a new 
enemy, and with your permission Mr. Finney will take 
dinner with us today, and he can explain it to you better 
than I. He said, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, 
cleanseth from all sin/ and God has given another mir¬ 
acle to the world, that Jesus had power on earth to for¬ 
give sins/ , and they were all amazed at the mighty 
power of God. 




NEW BIRTH 


I am going to speak tonight upon an old-fashioned 
doctrine. I am taking one of the most familiar texts 
I believe that can be found in the New Testament, but 
yet I think it is one of the most profound and incompre¬ 
hensible in all the Word of God. (It is the keynote of 
all evangelism.) Every evangelistic preacher, pastor or 
evangelist must center his thought in and around this 
text more or less. 

My text is, ‘‘Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must 
be born again.” John 3:7. You will notice that he has 
used in the third and fifth verses of this chapter the 
same truth and the same doctrine. We seem to get away 
from this vital truth quite a little today, but I do not 
know any text that needs greater emphasis in this time 
than this one, “Ye must be born again.” 

I am glad of the character of the one to whom he 
spoke this truth. He didn’t speak it to the woman He 
met at Jacob’s well—the woman who had the mania for 
getting a new husband every little while. Jesus said to 
her, “Go, call your husband.” 

She replied, “I have no husband.” 

Jesus said, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband.’ 
You have had five and the one you have now is not your 
husband.” 

I am glad He didn’t speak this truth to her, for if He 


52 


MEETING JESUS 


had, you would have said she belonged to the class that 
need to be born again. The women who are getting new 
husbands all the while need to be born again, but it is not 
applicable to us. 

I am glad that He did not speak it to the woman out 
of whom He cast devils. When a woman has one devil 
in her she is bad enough, but a woman who has seven 
must be a terror. He didn’t speak it to her. If He had 
you would have said that these women who have the 
devil in them need to be born again, but it is not ap¬ 
plicable to us. 

I am glad He did not speak it to the woman taken in 
adultery. If He had you and I would have said the 
adulterer and adulteress need to be born again, but it is 
not applicable to us. 

I am glad He did not speak to Levi, who sat at the 
receipt of custom. That man who had forfeited all na¬ 
tional pride and just given himself up to make money in 
any way he could. If He had, you and I would have 
said it is not applicable to us, but to the saloonkeeper. 
He is the fellow who needs to be born again. 

He spoke this truth to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, 
a moral man, an intellectual man, a cultured man, a 
refined man, a religious man. He was one of the best 
representative men that could be found in all Palestine. 



NEW BIRTH 


53 


Doctrine for Everyone 

When Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born 
again,” he took in the woman at the well; the woman 
out of whom He cast the seven devils; the woman taken 
in adultery; Levi, the grafter; and all the good, moral, 
respectable people in the world. 

There is no doctrine that the devil hates more than 
he does the doctrine of the new birth, and none that he 
is more active in substituting other things for, because 
he loses every one that is born again. 

Nicodemus said, “We know that thou art a teacher 
come from God,” but Jesus led him to see he must 
know Him as more than a teacher. To know Jesus 
Christ as a teacher is not enough. I must know Him 
not only as a teacher but as a Saviour and know Him 
as my personal Saviour. 

I may know the duties of the President of the United 
States, but that does not make me the President of the 
United States. I may know the duties of the king of 
England, but that does not make me the king of England. 

I may be familiar with the doctrine of the new birth 
and know what a Christian ought to be, but that does 
not make me born again or make me a Christian. 

“Ye must be born again.” “Except a man be born 
of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom 
of God.” “Ye must be born again.” Why? Because 
the sixth verse of the chapter says, “That which is born 



54 


MEETING JESUS 


of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit 
is spirit.” 


Two Kinds of Birth 

There are two kinds of birth, the fleshly birth and the 
spiritual birth. I do not know how many of you here 
have been born of the spirit but you have all been born 
of the flesh. I know that and if you have been bom of 
the Spirit, you know that as well for yourself. 

It does not make any difference what kind of flesh it 
is, black flesh or white flesh, educated flesh or illiterate, 
culture flesh or coarse, ignorant flesh, bank president 
flesh or farmer flesh; it is all flesh and it is necessary 
for every one to be born again. 

Romans 8:8 says, 4 ‘ They that are in the flesh cannot 
please God.” It is not my word that I am giving you. 

God says to each and all, “Ye must be bom again.” 
The new birth is not reformation, amelioration, cultiva¬ 
tion, civilization or education. In Jeremiah 13:23 we 
read, ‘ ‘ Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard 
his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accus¬ 
tomed to evil.” Again in Jeremiah 2:22, “For though 
thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet 
thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God.” 
That would indicate that not much could be accomp¬ 
lished by the reformation efforts. 

Some time ago there was a man going about this 
country with an educated hog. That hog could spell out 



NEW BIRTH 


55 


words by placing blocks together with letters on them. 
He could use blocks with figures on them and add on 
them and subtract and give the right answer. He was 
an educated hog, but he was still a hog. So you can edu¬ 
cate flesh, but it is still flesh. 

Environment Doesn’t Count 

I was talking some time ago to a bank president. 
When a man gets money enough and influence enough 
to be the president of a bank, he quite frequently thinks 
he knows something about theology and everything else, 
and can discuss most anything. He came into one of 
my meetings and he had to get out, it was too warm 
for him. Some fellows have to go out to get better air, 
you know. I met him on the street soon after and was 
talking to him. He said, “I don’t take any stock in 
what you preach.” I knew the devil didn’t, either, 
but I refrained from telling him so. He said, “I think 
environment is the thing people need. You give the 
people good environment and you will make splendid 
people out of them.” 

I didn’t know what to say to that just then, so I went 
away to think. When a fellow corners me once, the 
next fellow who puts up the same argument will get all 
that is coming to him, for I load my gun to the muzzle 
and get ready. I found by investigation that there was 
good environment in the Garden of Eden, yet Adam and 
Eve went to the devil. 



56 


MEETING JESUS 


I remember Judas had pretty good environment with 
Jesus Christ, but the abominable old sinner betrayed 
his Lord in spite of his environment. I saw you could 
take a goat and put him in a pen with sheep and keep 
him there for five years, feeding him upon sheep food 
and letting him associate with nothing but sheep, and 
when you let him out he will go back in the alley and 
feed upon tin cans just the same as he did before. His 
environment doesn’t change his nature. 

Only by New Birth 

You can take some of your old “goats” and put them 
in the church with Christians and let them associate with 
good people and it does not change their nature one bit. 
When they get out they will act just as they always did, 
and will rush the growler just the same as before. 

You cannot break a balky horse by painting the barn. 
You cannot purify the water in the well by painting 
the pump. You cannot make a man what he ought to 
be by giving him good environment, education, culture 
and refinement. There must be a work of grace in his 
heart before he will be what God wants him to be. 

We read in John 1:13, “Which were born not of 
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God.” Three things they were not born 
of, one thing they were born of. They were not born 
of blood, so it is not a fleshly birth that makes us a child 
of God, that makes us a child of wrath, Eph. 2:3. We 



NEW BIRTH 


57 


do not inherit the divine nature from our parents. I 
have said to some people, "Are you a Christian?” 

"Yes, yes.” 

"How long have you been a Christian?” 

"I have always been a Christian. My parents were 
Christians and I was brought up in a Christian home. 
I have always been a Christian.’ ’ I have watched some 
of them and they live in the world and live like the devil. 

Parentage Doesn’t Count 

They thought they were Christians because they were 
born of Christian parents, whereas they are not Chris¬ 
tians and cannot be until they have been born again. 

God gave the power of generation into the hands of 
man that he might propagate the race, but He reserved 
the power of regeneration to Himself, and we are all 
dependent upon Him for the new birth. 

If someone should say to me, "Are you a Mason?” 
and I would say, ‘ ‘ Oh, yes . 9 9 

"Where did you join the lodge?” 

"Oh, I never joined exactly.” 

"What makes you say you are a Mason?” 

"Oh, well, I believe in the principles of Masonry.” 

I say, does that make me a Mason? Am I a Mason 
just because I stand up and say I believe in the prin¬ 
ciples of Masonry and at the same time I never put in 
my application and joined a lodge? No; I am not a 
Mason. I must be voted on and then, if I am not black- 



58 


MEETING JESUS 


balled, I am notified that I am accepted and then I must 
be initiated before I become a Mason. And if I say I 
am a Mason without it, I am a liar. 

When I come to you and take you by the hand and 
say, “Are you a Christian?” 

“Oh, yes,” you say. 

I ask you what makes you think so. “Oh, because 
I believe in the principles of Christianity,” you say. 

“Have you ever taken your stand for Christ?” 

“Oh, no, but I believe in the principles of Christian¬ 
ity. ’ 9 I would not dare to say what I think, but I have 
my opinion; I will let you make the application. 

A man must appropriate Jesus as his personal Saviour 
and put himself on record publicly in this old world 
for Christ, if he would be a Christian. I am not a 
Christian until I have been born of the Spirit, until I 
have made a decision to take my stand as a Christian 
and say good-bye to sin and the world. When that de¬ 
cision is made the Spirit will do the work of imparting 
the divine nature to me and I am born of the Spirit 
from above. 

It is not of blood nor of the will of the flesh. That 
means that all of the striving of the fleshly man cannot 
attain to the new birth in his own strength. I am help¬ 
less to go on into the realm of the spiritual without the 
work of the Spirit in the new birth. 

I may become refined and educated, and may have 
developed the “old man” wonderfully, but I cannot 



NEW BIRTH 


59 


develop him to a place where he is said to be born again. 
No, sir! It is not of the will of the flesh to do it. 

Let me say that Adam’s sin could never have hurt us 
if he had not been our head by generation; and the right¬ 
eousness of Christ can never benefit us unless He be¬ 
comes our head by regeneration. 

The Darwin Theory 

Here is the vegetable kingdom; here is the animal 
kingdom, and here is the spiritual kingdom. They are 
separate kingdoms. Of course you evolutionists who 
hold to the Darwinian theory and think your ancestors 
were monkeys, think it is possible for one of these to 
develop into another. I have no objections when you 
say your ancestors were monkeys, but I have when you 
say mine were. God does not say He made man out of 
a monkey, but He said He made man out of the dust 
of the earth. 

A man said to a friend of mine one day, “Don’t you 
believe that we originated from monkeys ? ’ ’ 

My friend said, “I looked him over carefully from 
head to foot and replied, ‘I never did until now.’ ” 

I do not believe life began with a little yeast, then it 
developed into a tadpole, then it lost its tail and became 
a frog and got out of the water on the shore and took 
on its tail again and became a monkey, and then lost his 
tail again and became a man. I can not swallow that. 



60 


MEETING JESUS 


If I were to accept that, I would have to throw away 
my belief in some of the Bible and in the new birth. I 
am going to stick to this until I find something better. 
I do not know any case where a monkey developed into 
a man but I know cases where men have degenerated 
into monkeys. 

It looks to me as if we were going the wrong way. 
We never lived in a time when men were doing more to 
develop the vegetable kingdom than now. 

Luther Burbank has done wonders with the plant life 
but I will tell you what he has not done. He never de¬ 
veloped a plant into an animal. A developed plant left 
to itself either returns to the original or dies. 

If man came from the animal kingdom why would 
there not still be a gradual development of that kingdom 
and why would not a monkey turn out to be a man, once 
in a while, now. It is only a theory. It has never been 
proven. 

There was never a day when man was doing more to 
develop the animal than now, but with all of man’s assist¬ 
ance, the animal has never been able to cross the fixed 
gulf into the human kingdom. And with all of the cul¬ 
ture and refinement of the natural man, he has never 
been able to take a soul into the realm of the Spirit with¬ 
out the new birth and he is dependent upon God alone 
for that. 



NEW BIRTH 


61 


The Flesh Is Flesh 

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. You can make 
nothing else out of it. God has given to mankind the 
privilege of a new birth, if he will accept it. It is called 
a new birth because with it comes a new life and new 
activities. 

It is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of 
the will of man. “The will of man.” What does that 
mean? I think it means this: No baptisms or laying 
on of hands in confirmation vows can impart the new 
birth to man. The imparting of the new life is in the 
hands of God. After we have done our best to help our 
friends, we fall short. They must trust Him. 

The next statement is, “ It is of God. ’’ In Peter 1:23 
we read, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but 
of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and 
abideth forever.” Fleshly seed is corruptible seed, the 
seed of the Word is incorruptible. We are to be born 
again not by corruptible, but by incorruptible seed that 
liveth and abideth forever. 

I imagine I have a tree out here, an apple tree. It is 
a pretty tree, but it does not produce good fruit. I say 
to someone, “What shall I do to get some good fruit 
from this tree?” 

He will say, “You ought to fertilize it.” So the next 
spring I fertilize the tree and the fruit is a little larger, 
but I find it tastes the same. 



62 


MEETING JESUS 


I ask another man what to do and he says, “ Yon ought 
to prune it.” So I cut away about half the branches 
and it blossoms sooner the next spring and has larger 
fruit, but when I taste the apple it has no better flavor 
than before. 

I ask another man what to do and he says, “You want 
to spray that tree and kill the caterpillars.” So I get 
a little spraying apparatus and spray the tree and the 
caterpillars are killed, but the fruit is no better. 

Some of you fellows want to get rid of the caterpillars 
in your life, that is about all you care for. If you could 
get rid of the caterpillars of blasphemy, drink, etc., you 
would say, “I am good enough; I do not need religion.” 

When a man gets reformed a little, he thinks he is a 
pretty decent fellow, and he doesn’t want Christ. 

The next spring another man says to me, “You can 
cultivate that tree all you want to, but you will never 
get good fruit from it until you graft in a better nature.” 
So I get a man who understands grafting to go and cut 
a limb from another good tree, and he grafts it upon my 
tree and I watch it with interest, and sure enough, when 
the fruit is ripe, I put by teeth into it. It has a fine 
flavor. A new fruit entirely. 

Grafted in Divine Nature 

So it is if the divine nature is grafted into you, if you 
submit to the requirements that are urged upon you, you 



NEW BIRTH 


63 


will no longer be unfruitful, but you will bear much 
fruit that is pleasing to the husbandman. 

There is a legend of a gardener who walked through a 
waste place one day and found an old wild rose growing 
there. He took his spade and digged about it to remove 
it to his garden. The rose smiled and said, “Foolish 
gardener. Does he not know that I am only a wild rose, 
fit for nothing? What does he mean?” 

The gardener dug his garden, brought fertilizer and 
put upon the spot and planted the old wild rose among 
the others of his garden. When it had taken root and 
was growing nicely, the gardener came one day and took 
out his knife and cut off the top from the wild rose and 
then took the top from one of his tame roses and grafted 
it into the other. It blossomed out with most beautiful 
flowers and the gardener said one day, as he looked at 
the old rose and smiled, “Your beauty is not because of 
what came out of you, but because of what I put into 
you.” 

The beauty that will come in us will not be because 
of what came out of this old fleshly man, but it will be 
because we became submissive to God’s will and He im¬ 
parted to us the divine nature, and that nature will cause 
us to be Christlike and to become more beautiful before 
Him in the garden of our Lord. 

In 2 Peter 1:4 we read, “Whereby are given unto us 
exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye 
might be partakers of the divine nature.” 



64 


MEETING JESUS 


In Colossians 1:27, “Christ in you the hope of glory /’ 
In Galations 4:6, “And because ye are sons, God hath 
sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, 
Abba, Father/’ 

Again 1 John 5:11-12, “And this is the record that 
God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His 
Son. He that hath the Son hath life.” 

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if any man be in 
Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: 
behold, all things are become new. ’’ Do you believe it ? 

Isaiah 55:13, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the 
fir tree; instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle 
tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an ever¬ 
lasting sign that shall not be cut off.” This is said of 
Israel, but it illustrates our own experience. 

The Evergreen Tree 

Instead of the old nature of thorns shall come forth 
that stately evergreen tree, speaking of everlasting life 
which God shall impart to us. Have you been born 
again and are you a partaker of the divine nature? 

I was walking down a street in a city with a man who 
had been converted. He had been an awful drunkard. 
He pointed to a saloon on the corner and said, “ Mr. 
Crabill, there is where I used to spend much of my time 
and nearly all of my money. I go there once in a while 
to talk to the fellows I used to know that still drink as 
I used to do.” Then he said, “I live down this street. 



NEW BIRTH 


65 


We used to live in an old shanty and I had sold nearly all 
the furniture until we actually slept on a pile of straw 
in the corner. But I have a new house there now and I 
put a five hundred dollar piano in the new house for my 
daughter the other day, just above where the pile of 
straw used to be in the old home. It makes a difference, 
doesn’t it?” 

Only an Act of Faith 

It is not a process, it is an act of faith, Gal. 3:26. 
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ 
Jesus.” Look at John 1:12, “But as many as received 
Him, to them gave He the power to become children of 
God, even to them that believe on His name.” Ephe¬ 
sians 2:10 says, “We are His workmanship created in 
Christ Jesus unto good works. ’ ’ 

As soon as anyone takes Jesus Christ by faith, appro¬ 
priating Him as his Saviour, he is a child of God. 
Friend, you have come into this place tonight with no 
intention of taking Christ as your Saviour, but if you 
are reasonable with yourself you will take Christ and go 
out just as much saved as the man who has been saved 
twenty years. 

I do not wonder Nicodemus asked, “How can these 
things be? Can a man enter the second time into his 
mother’s womb and be born?” If you entered your 
mother’s womb fifty times and were born over and over 



66 


MEETING JESUS 


again, you would still be flesh and need to be born again 
from above. You must be “born again.’’ 

Jesus proceeded to illustrate by some kindergarten 
lessons from the Old Testament that Nicodemus was fa¬ 
miliar with, and said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted 
up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, 
but have eternal life.” 

Nicodemus was familiar with the story of the serpent 
in the wilderness. When the people had been bitten by 
the fiery serpent, you know how God commanded Moses 
to put a brass serpent upon a pole, and those who looked 
upon it were healed of the deadly sting. 

Nicodemus knew it was an historical fact; that it was 
generally believed by all; that no one denied it. Jesus 
told him that in the same way a man who looked upon 
Him, believing in His sacrifice, as He was lifted up upon 
the cross, would be saved from his sins. 

Beyond Comprehension 

“How can these things be?” Jesus said, “The wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou heareth the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell from whence it cometh or 
whither it goeth, so is everyone that is born of the 
spirit.” 

You cannot understand the wind very well. It has 
blown your hat off. I have seen it do that. And it will 
turn a windmill, it will pump water, it will drive sail- 



NEW BIRTH 


67 


boats across the sea. It does the work, but do we under¬ 
stand it? 

I cannot understand electricity. I see to read by its 
light and ride upon the electric cars driven by its power, 
but that is about as far as I can go. I know that if cer¬ 
tain metals are brought near together and run at a cer¬ 
tain number of revolutions per minute, it generates elec¬ 
tricity, but I do not know what it is, only they call it 
electricity. 

Suppose I say I will never ride in an electric car until 
I understand all about electricity, you would say, “You 
are the biggest fool that ever came to this town. ” And I 
guess it would be true. I don’t understand it, but I 
read by the light of it and ride in the cars run by it. 

I do not know how the food I eat is assimilated; some 
food goes to make hair and some to make bones and some 
to make finger nails, and some to make brains. Some 
makes red corpuscles and some white corpuscles. I do 
not know how the process goes on, but I know it does. 

If I were to have charge of it, I would get it all mixed 
up, I am afraid, and make bones out of finger nails and 
teeth out of hair, etc. I suppose some of these doctors 
could tell me how it goes on, but I have never been in¬ 
terested enough to ask them about it. 

I believe in many things I do not understand. I don’t 
understand how this food I eat goes on and builds up 
my body; I do not understand how it is done. It is suffi¬ 
cient for me to know it does the work. 



68 


MEETING JESUS 


If all about us there are mysteries like electricity and 
the wind and the assimilation of food, etc., if I know 
these things are going on, although I cannot understand 
them, why should it be a hard thing for us to believe 
there were some mysteries about the new birth which 
God meant for us to believe and accept, although we do 
not understand it? 


By Faith Alone 

I do not understand it, but I can give you a clue, and 
if you follow the clue you will get the experience of the 
new birth. Just as electricity and food do their work, I 
know that if you will come in child-like faith, appropri¬ 
ating Jesus Christ as your Saviour, that the spirit of 
God will do the work and you will be born again. 

When I was holding a series of meetings in Bainbridge, 
N. Y., there was a young man who had just graduated 
from High School. He was seventeen or eighteen years 
old. He was dying with that white plague, consumption. 
He was living on the front porch with a big fur over¬ 
coat on and a pair of felt boots. He could just talk in 
that husky whisper which people use that are in the last 
stages of consumption. 

I was asked to call upon him. So I walked down the 
street to his house and found him out on the front 
porch. He knew me by reputation; he had watched the 
baseball players through the newspapers, and he knew 



NEW BIRTH 


69 


my reputation and the reputation of a lot of fellows I 
played with. 

I talked with him quite a while about baseball, for he 
was interested in that, and then I said, ‘ ‘ I must go now, 
but I want to ask you a question before I go. ’ ’ I knew 
the preacher had been taking him out riding and Chris¬ 
tian workers had come down to see him and were un¬ 
certain about his actually being saved, although he was 
a good, moral boy. 

I said, “Are you a Christian?” 

He said, “Mr. Crabill, the only hope I have is in Jesus 
Christ/’ 

That sounded pretty good and I said, “Are you sure 
of the fact that you have been born again? Or we can 
get at the facts by putting it in this way, has the time 
ever come when you definitely accepted Jesus Christ as 
your personal Saviour and confessed Him before men?” 

“I don’t know that I ever did that,” he said. 

I said, ‘ ‘ Then you have a good right to doubt that you 
are a Christian.” 

I talked to him and I saw he was interested; I opened 
my Bible to John 3:36. I put my finger on it and kept 
it there and read, “He that believeth on the Son hath 
everlasting life.” I explained to him that “believeth 
on” meant to trust. “He that trusteth the Son hath 
everlasting life.” I said, “Frank, according to God’s 
Word there is somebody who has everlasting life right 
now. Who is it?” 



70 


MEETING JESUS 


“ According to that it is the man who trusteth the 
Son.” 

I laid the Bible on his lap and said, “Read it aloud.” 
I said, “Do you trust the Son?” 

He said, “I don’t know whether I do or not.” 

I said, “Will you trust Him? Will you give up all 
your doubts and trust Jesus Christ right now ? Read it 
again,” I said, and he did. I said, “Do you believe 
the Bible?” 

He said, “I do.” 

“What does God say you have?” 

“Everlasting life. God says I have everlasting life. 
I am saved. Oh, auntie, I am saved,” he called. 

As the Faithful Die 

The poor old aunt began to cry. That boy, before I 
had gone away from his bedside, said, “You pass that 
house down there. There is a woman there who comes to 
see me every day. I want you to go and tell her just 
what you have told me, will you?” 

That poor boy lived two or three months, and talked 
to everybody who came to his bedside about Jesus and 
the new birth. One of the largest funerals ever held in 
Bainbridge was the funeral of Frank Croak. The old 
aunt got on the train and came to Binghamton to see 
me after the funeral and said Frank had talked about 
me and longed to see me and have another visit, but said, 



NEW BIRTH 


71 


“Auntie, it won’t be long until I meet Mr. Crabill in 
heaven, and then we will have a good visit.” 

She told me that Frank had never given up to die 
until I talked with him that day and showed him the 
way to Jesus. The old woman said, “We will meet him 
there, won’t we, Mr. Crabill?” and I said I expected 
to do so. 

She began to fumble around in her pocketbook, and 
finally took out a one-dollar bill and said, “Mr. Crabill, 
Frank left this to you and wanted you to buy something 
to remember him by. ’ ’ I bought a book with that dollar 
and on the fly leaf I have written, ‘ ‘ Bought with a dollar 
left to me by Frank Croak, who was converted through 
John 3:36, on his deathbed. He lived a faithful life for 
three months and preached to everyone who came to his 
bedside. Died a triumphant death and went home to be 
with Jesus. I expect to meet him there.” 

He was a splendid, moral boy, refined and educated, 
but he lacked the one thing needful. He never had it 
until I sat by his bedside and taught him the truth from 
John 3:36. 

Brother, have you been born again? Remember, it 
was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into this 
world, who had all wisdom, who said to one of the best 
men who ever lived that it was necessary for him to be 
born again. He preached that sermon, and He put it on 
record by the Holy Spirit that one must put aside his 
own way and come and accept His way, and through that 



72 


MEETING JESUS 


become a partaker of the divine nature. If you have 
not been born again, I plead with you, don’t delay your 
decision any longer; but make this night the time when 
you will submit to God and be born of the Spirit into 
the kingdom and actually become a child of God. 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


I am going to talk to yon a little while on “What is 
a Christian ?” I do not know as it ought to be neces¬ 
sary for us to talk along this line, but it seems as if it 
is necessary. 

I remember reading some time ago a series of articles 
in a magazine along this line. They were written by a 
number of men who were supposed to know; but I de¬ 
clare to you I thought some of them had gone far astray 
from what a Christian actually is. Some of their defi¬ 
nitions were far off. I think the Bible’s definition of 
what a Christian is, is of more value and this one I find 
in the eighth chapter of Romans and the ninth verse, 
“If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none 
of his.” I think that is a pretty good description of 
what a Christian is. 

I have heard people talk about Christians who do not 
have the spirit, but I believe it is impossible for a man 
to be a Christian and not have the spirit of Christ. The 
Book says so, and the Old Book is the end of the con¬ 
troversy. , I 

When God says anything I believe it, and God’s Word 
says, “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is 
none of his.” Now, you know I have an idea that if 
a man has the spirit of Christ, there will be some mani¬ 
festation of that spirit in his life. Although I have 


74 


MEETING JESUS 


talked with some people and some preachers who believe, 
or said that they did, that a man might have the spirit 
of Christ in his life and the spirit might lie dormant 
there. I did not believe it when they were telling it 
and I do not believe it now and I don’t think I ever 
shall. 

If yon have the spirit of Christ you have the spiritual 
life. Where there is life there is activity. If you are 
spiritually alive you will have spiritual activity. 

Cannot Suppress Physical Life 

You know you cannot suppress physical life. I have 
tried it and I know it cannot be done. 

Sometimes when my wife has gone out, I have been 
lying on the bed when she would return. I have a ma¬ 
nia, I guess, for scaring people. I like to play with 
children and not having any children, I have a lot of 
fun with my wife. When she has been out somewhere 
I have tried to play off dead when she would return. 
I have lived with her quite a few years and I know what 
she always does. The moment she steps in at the door 
she says, “Ernest.” When she speaks my name, I 
never say a word. I have my eyes half closed, and my 
mouth drawn down, and try to look as much as possible 
as if I were dead. She will speak my name again and 
then she will come and run her finger along my ribs, and 
I tell you, everybody for a block around knows I am 
alive. 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


75 


You know you cannot suppress physical life. You 
take your children to church and place them in a seat 
and say to them, “Now you sit there and don’t you dare 
to move.” But you don’t sit still yourselves. I have 
seen some of you squirm a good deal in these meetings. 

I know that if we are physically alive, we are active 
even though we are asleep. I remember one morning I 
found myself with my head at the foot of the bed. I 
got there in my sleep some way; I don’t know how. And 
one time I was sleeping with someone who moved his arm 
in his sleep right across my nose and I knew he was alive. 

George F. Pentecost told once of being in Philadelphia 
at the Centennial. They had statues from every coun¬ 
try in the world, representing every kind of soldier; 
statues from every country except the United States. 
They used soldiers instead. 

A number of soldiers would stand perfectly rigid, 
looking like statues. They were changed every fifteen 
minutes, for they could not stand long. Pentecost was 
standing there and he had seen them change. 

By Way of Proof 

By and by, a couple of women came along, they looked 
at the statues and talked about them and when they 
came to the United States soldiers one of them said, 
“Isn’t this a magnificent piece of work.” They sup¬ 
posed of course that the United States would be ahead 



76 


MEETING JESUS 


of any other country under the sun, so they were not 
surprised. 

They came up closer to the statue and one of them 
said, “Did you ever see anything that looked more like 
a man than that does?” 

They kept coming closer. The man had a mustache. 
“Did you ever see a mustache any more like a man’s 
than that?” 

One of them startled and said, “I thought I saw him 
wink his eye.” 

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” said the other. 

“I certainly did,” she said. 

They got up closer and closer and one of them reached 
out to take hold of his mustache and the soldier said, 
“Boo!” 

He almost scared those women to death. He had sup¬ 
pressed physical life as long as possible and had to give 
way. 

True of Spiritual Life, Too 

Beloved, just as long as you are physically alive you 
will have physical activity. You will never cease to be 
active until the life is gone out of your body. Then the 
body will become rigid and its activity ceases. If that 
is true of the physical life it is true of the spiritual life. 

“If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none 
of his.” If you have the spirit of Christ it is going to 
produce spiritual activity, and when it produces spiritual 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


77 


activity it will be along the same line as it was in Jesus 
Christ. 

He came to seek and to save that which was lost. 
He went about spending and being spent for the good 
of humanity. He died to save them. When He came 
forth from the tomb, He sent His Holy Spirit and 
through the Holy Spirit, He is carrying on the work of 
seeking out the lost now. 

He is pressing into His service everyone He can get. 
Brother, if you are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, that 
spirit will manifest Himself in your life and it will be 
along the line of seeking to save the lost. 

Do not tell me you are a Christian because you go to 
church. That does not make you a Christian because 
you go to church any more than it makes you a horse to 
go to stable. The only thing that makes a Christian is 
to be born again and indwelt by the Spirit of Christ. If 
He is there, there is a manifestation of life there and 
more or less you are engaged in the work of seeking the 
lost. 

I go into many churches and inquire for the best work¬ 
ers and find they have only the social side developed. 
Now, I believe in the social side and I think you have 
not developed the social side enough. I think many of 
you are stiff and formal and you do not warm up to 
each other as you ought, but don’t substitute the social 
side for the spiritual. You are making a great mistake 
when you do. 



78 


MEETING JESUS 


No “Trying to Be a Christian” 

Nothing but the Spirit of Christ makes you a Chris¬ 
tian; if you have it, there is spiritual life and there is 
also compassion for the lost ones. I am sure the Devil 
is deceiving people, making them think they are Chris¬ 
tians because they have joined the church. They have 
lost sight of the only thing that saves them from Hell, 
being born again. We have so much of this “trying to 
be a Christian.” We say to some, “Are you a Chris¬ 
tian?” 

“I am trying to be.” 

And some of them are not trying very hard, either. 

Suppose you were to ask me, “Are you married?” 

If I should say, “I am trying to be,” what would 
you think of me? What would my wife think? It is 
a ridiculous idea, of course; but not more so than for 
people to say they are “trying to be Christians.” 

We say to some, “Are you a Christian?” 

* 4 Sometimes I think I am and sometimes I think I am 
not.” 

I asked a fellow one day if he were a Christian and 
he said, “Yes.” 

I said, “How long have you been a Christian?” 

“Oh, I have for quite a while.” 

If you say you are trying to be a Christian, that is an 
acknowledgment that you are not. 

If I am trying to be a lawyer, I am not a lawyer; for 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


79 


why should I be trying to be one if I were already one? 
If I am trying to be a physician, I am not a physician. 
If I am trying to be a musician, I am not a musician. 

Unitarianism 

Trying to be a Christian is a practical Unitarianism, 
and I am more afraid of practical Unitarianism than I 
am of theoretical Unitarianism. Unitarianism is trying 
to have Christanity with Christ left out. It is trying 
to have the benefits of the Kingdom without the King¬ 
dom. It is trying to have a stream without a spring. 
It is taking the character of Jesus Christ and saying, 
“He is a pretty good man, in fact the best that ever 
lived. He left some splendid teaching, the best we ever 
had. ’ r The best man that ever lived could not be a liar. 
Jesus Christ was either the Son of God, or an abominable 
liar. Jesus Christ was either the promised seed, born 
of the Virgin Mary, or else He was an illegitimate child. 

You know we are living in a time when we are wor¬ 
shipping the God of Liberality and we are afraid to 
stand up and say anything against false doctrines and 
we call it charity. 

Most Hellish Doctrine 

The most hellish doctrine in the world is that you can 
live a Christian life and save your soul without blood 
atonement and the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ. 



80 


MEETING JESUS 


The man or woman who is friendly to that abominable 
teaching cannot be a friend of mine. 

Unitarianism says, if I imitate well the life of Christ 
I will save my soul. All Unitarians do not belong to 
the Unitarian church. I wish they did. We find them 
scattered here and there among the best of God’s people 
and if I could I would put them all in the Unitarian 
church where they belong. It is contrary to the teach¬ 
ing of this old Book of God, which gives us the way of 
salvation. 

If this Old Book is true and Christ knew what he was 
talking about, it is absolutely necessary to believe in 
blood atonement and being born again of the Spirit. 
You cannot be born of the Spirit and reject Jesus Christ 
as your Saviour, if that Book is true; and if it is not 
true, we might as well give up the whole thing. 

If I did not believe in the necessity of the new birth 
I would give up preaching and go into some other kind 
of business. I believe it is necessary and every man 
who has actually been born again and has the Spirit of 
God knows it. 

I read in 2 Cor. 13:15 that we are to examine ourselves 
whether we be in faith. I think we ought to take an 
inventory as business men do and see what we have. If 
you haven’t got enough, you had better stock up. 

Sometimes when we think we are all right, we get into 
a revival meeting and we find we are all wrong. 

When you begin to examine yourselves let me see if I 




WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


81 


cannot help you out. Where do you like to go best; to 
the dance hall or to the prayer meeting? If a good show 
comes to town where do you go; to the show or to the 
prayer meeting? What you are at heart will manifest 
itself outwardly. We may keep ourselves in check for 
a while but by and by we do the things that we like to 
do best. We may keep the old man on short rations in 
Lent, but when Lent is over we make up for lost time. 
I think if we can live forty days true to Christ, we ought 
to try it for days. 

What Do You Like to Do? 

What would you like to do best? That shows just 
what you are at heart. In some places where I have 
been if you want to have an attendance, you have to 
feed people’s stomachs. They don’t care so much for 
spiritual food. Give them oyster soup and ice cream 
and chicken pie, and Oh, my! how they take to that. 
But you cannot get out a corporal’s guard to a meeting 
to plan for a revival or to pray for the salvation of the 
lost. Some people are conspicuous by their absence at 
such a time. Whatever is the controlling interest in 
your life will manifest itself. 

Have you ever read the Fourth Chapter of Acts at 
the twenty-third verse? Peter and John had healed the 
man at the Gate Beautiful and he was leaping and prais¬ 
ing God. The people didn’t like it; there was too much 
enthusiasm. 



82 


MEETING JESUS 


An old woman went to a fashionable church once, and 
was seated up in the gallery. By and by, the preacher 
said something that did her good and she began to shout, 
“Praise the Lord!” 

The ushers came to her and told her she must not make 
so much noise and asked her what was the matter. “Oh, 
I am so happy. I know I am saved and have religion.” 

The usher led her out and said, “You stay out of 
here; this is no place to get religion.” 

The lame man was praising God like that. They 
thought that the man who had been lame all his life 
ought to go and hide himself and say nothing about it 
when he was made whole. 

Peter and John, who had done the work in the name of 
Christ, got into trouble for it. It was such an awful 
thing for them to do such work as that, you know, and 
so they locked them up in prison and the next day they 
let them out. It says in that twenty-third verse, “be¬ 
ing let go, they went to their own company.” When 
you are actually “let go” you go to your own company 
as they did. When a young fellow gets away from home 
restrictions, he goes to his own company. 

There are some people who enjoy being in a dirty sa¬ 
loon where men are drinking and vomiting and rolling 
on the floor like beasts. They enjoy themselves better 
in that kind of company than with the company of sober, 
clean, well dressed people at the prayer meeting. 

If you want to know what you are, the people you go 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN t 


83 


with and the places you go to will show you. Take a 
look. 


Stick to the Sunday School 

When the restrictions of the Sunday school are lifted, 
and they ought never to be lifted, you old gray haired 
men ought to go back and take a post-graduate course. 
Yes, you ought to do it. The people who are in Sunday 
school and get away from its influences will go to their 
own company. Some of them will go from the Sunday 
school into the church and become pillars because they 
have accepted Christ and been bom again. Others will 
go out into the world and associate with a godless gang, 
because they have rejected Christ and turned Him down. 

When you go from your home down to New York 
City, for instance, where do you go? Do you look for 
the best show or do you like to go where the battle is on 
for the salvation of souls? We talk about the city prob¬ 
lem and about the country problem, but the city prob¬ 
lem is the real problem. If it were not for the country 
churches, the city churches would die out. It is almost 
impossible for a man to reach many in the big cities. 

Where do you go? Do you go to the play house, or 
do you go to the life saving stations? Where do you 
go? I think that if Jesus Christ were here in the world 
and went to New York City, He would be found en¬ 
deavoring to save the lost. 

If you are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, and led 



84 


MEETING JESUS 


by that Spirit, I believe yon will be interested in the 
salvation of the lost. 

In the fourteenth verse of the eighth chapter of Rom¬ 
ans, it says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the sons of God.” You cannot tell me that the 
Spirit of God will lead you out to those places where 
you will not do anything for God. 

“As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the 
sons of God.” Let us say it the other way, “As many 
as are not led by the Spirit of God, are not the sons of 
God.” If you are led by the Spirit of God and the 
Spirit leads you as He led Jesus Christ, He will lead 
you on the pathway that will help other people to find 
salvation. 

Must Give Help to Others 

I can put no other interpretation upon the Scriptures. 
I cannot believe that a man is a Christian if he is not 
on the pathway where he will help others to find Christ. 
I believe that a Christian comes to the light, his deeds 
may be made manifest. 

There in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, in the 
first thirteen verses is the test of Christians, possessors 
and professors. You will find ten virgins, five wise and 
five foolish. The wise ones had oil in their lamps, the 
foolish had not. Those who had the oil were the possess¬ 
ors, those who had no oil were mere professors. The oil 
in the lamp was the test of the genuineness of their pro- 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


85 


fession. The oil in this case symbolizes the Holy Spirit. 
A man may be a good church attendant, he may pay well 
to its support, but if the Spirit of Christ is not in him, 
he lacks the vital thing. 

Three Ways to Know 

I believe everyone ought to be a Christian and that 
everyone ought to know they are Christians. There are 
three splendid ways in which I may know whether I am 
a Christian or not. There are other ways, but there are 
these three splendid ways. 

First, I may know it by the Word of God. Second, I 
may know it by the witness of the Spirit. “The Spirit 
Himself beareth witness that we are the sons of God.” 
Third, I may know my outward life. 

In First John 5:13, it says, “These things are written 
to you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that 
ye may know ye have eternal life.” God’s Word is 
authoritative. I am to take my stand upon that Word. 
If I believe God’s Word and have put my trust in Christ 
I know I am saved. 

In the second place, Romans 8:16, “The Spirit Him¬ 
self beareth witness with my spirit that I am a son of 
God.” That gives us a consciousness within our souls, 
that our sins are forgiven and we stand justified before 
God. Men may bring arguments against you and you 
say you do not know you are saved and they may argue 
you into a corner until you have nothing to say, but if 



86 


MEETING JESUS 


you cannot say anything else you can say, “I know 
whereas I was blind, now I see. I have the conscious¬ 
ness within/ ’ 

“If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none 
of His.” 

I would take an inventory, friends. I would not trust 
to how I had been living; I would take care that I knew 
something about these meetings now. Are you conscious 
of the fact within your heart now that you are at peace 
with Him? 

In the third place, I may know that I am a Christian 
by my outward life. In the fifth chapter of Second 
Corinthians and the seventeenth verse, it says, “If any 
man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are 
passed away. Behold, all things are become new.” 
There will be a change in the outer life, when you ac¬ 
tually become a Christian. Old life is gone, a new life' 
begins. 

No Secret Christianity 

There is no such thing as secret Christianity. Christ 
says, “Let your light so shine before men that they may 
see your good works and glorify your Father which is 
in Heaven.” If you are saved by the power of God, 
and the Spirit has come into your life, you will be telling 
people about it, standing for the things you know are 
right, and standing against the sin of this world. 
Worldliness and sinfulness will drop off naturally. 




WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN t 


87 


I have watched an old oak tree when the frost had 
come in the fall and bitten the leaves, and the sleet and 
hail had come and twisted and beaten and threshed those 
leaves, but those leaves were still sticking on, and you 
could take a stick and beat them, but you couldn’t get 
them off. When the sap comes up in the spring, they 
drop off without any trouble. 

When the Spirit of God comes into your life, then 
all these things will drop off naturally. You will have 
new life and it will be more satisfying than the old one. 
Let me give you a prescription for getting a razor away 
from a baby. Get a nice orange and hold it up to the 
baby and he will drop the razor at once and take the 
orange. 

Old Things Lose Flavor 

When you begin to get a taste of the good things of 
Christ, you will find the things of the world will lose 
their attractiveness for you. The great trouble with 
many people is that they are baptized and join the 
church and partake of communion and try to live the 
Christian life without being indwelt by the Spirit of 
Christ, and they have a hard time of it. 

You can put a pig in the parlor and immediately he 
begins to look for mud and the parlor will change be¬ 
fore the pig will. You can put an unregenerate man in 
the church and immediately he will look to make a play 
house out of it. The difference between a real Christian 



88 


MEETING JESUS 


and one who is not a Christian is that the Christian is 
practicing the will of God and the non-Christian is prac¬ 
ticing rebellion against God’s will. 

First John 3:9, we read that he that is born of God, 
practiceth not sin. That is the real meaning of it, but 
I am aware that that is not the way the authorized ver¬ 
sion reads. One of the best Greek teachers I ever knew 
said, “You have the best translation of that verse I ever 
heard. ’ ’ I tell you the Holy Ghost is a good interpreter 
of the Word. 

“Whosoever is born of God practiceth not sin.” That 
does not mean that a Christian cannot fall into sin, for 
he can; but it does mean that a Christian will not keep 
on in the practice of known sin. Sin is the transgression 
of God’s law and God’s law is God’s will for you. If 
you transgress it, you are sinning. Going back to the 
eighth verse it says, “He that practiceth sin is of the 
Devil.” 

Suppose next Saturday night I go down town and get 
drunk. You need not look at me like that for I am not 
going to do it if I keep my senses. I never got drunk 
before and if I never do it again, no one would ever call 
me a drunkard. If I do it this Saturday, and again next 
Saturday, and again the following Saturday, and keep 
it up, everyone would call me a drunkard because I prac¬ 
tice getting drunk. So it is with sin. 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 


89 


Sheep vs. Hog 

The difference between a Christian and a mere pro¬ 
fessor is the difference between a sheep and a hog. I 
would not dare to give this illustration if it were not in 
the Bible. It is a Scriptural illustration and so it is 
God’s illustration. Here is your Scripture for it. 2 
Peter 2:22. 1 ‘ It has happened to them according to the 
true proverb. The dog returneth to his own vomit and 
the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. ’ ’ 
She never was anything else but a hog. You can take 
some old hogs and baptize them, and bring them into 
the church; it does not matter how much you scrub the 
outside, when they get near the mud again, into it they 
go. 

The difference between the sheep and the hog is that 
the sheep would not go into the mud naturally of his 
own accord. He might fall into it and when a sheep 
falls into the mire he is a horrible looking thing. He 
looks worse than a hog when he does. 

Many people in this town will go and get drunk and 
nothing will be said about it, for it is their habit and 
little attention is paid to it. I presume there are people 
drunk on the street tonight. If one of these preachers 
should go out and get drunk, the papers all over the 
country would be full of it. Mud looks worse on a sheep 
than on a hog, you see. It would look worse for him 
than for some of you fellows. A sheep is an awful 



90 


MEETING JESUS 


looking thing when it gets into the mud, but the sheep, 
while quite helpless in the mud, always scrambles to get 
out of the mud. He is out of his element. He doesn’t 
enjoy the mud as the hog does. 

The Spirit of Christ 

When the Spirit of Christ is in your life, you don’t 
love sin, but look at it from God’s standpoint and there¬ 
fore hate sin. 

“My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they 
follow me and I give them eternal life, and they shall 
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out from 
my hand. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are the Sons of God.” If that is true of you, you will 
be more glad to be in the place where souls are being 
saved than in any other place in all the world. 

A Christian is a man who has definitely appropriated 
Jesus Christ by faith as his Saviour and has taken his 
stand for God. He has given up his way to take God’s 
way. He has taken on a new life and delights to do 
God’s will. 

Are you a Christian? If the Spirit of Christ is in 
you and you have been born again, you are a child of 
God, a real Christian. “If any man have not the Spirit 
of Christ, he is none of His.” 



A MODERN JUDAS 


The text is found in John 13:30, “He then (Judas) 
having received the sop, went immediately out, and it 
was night.’’ 

While there at the Last Supper, darkness had settled 
down upon the earth and when Judas went out from 
the room, he went out into the darkness. I believe when 
he went out from Jesus Christ’s presence that night, it 
was illustrative at least of the life of the man who goes 
away from Jesus when he sees that His light and truth 
is the only thing that could save his soul. 

Judas had fully made up his mind to betray Jesus 
Christ. He did not do that all at once. Step by step, 
he came to the place. There are some things recorded 
about him that are very significant to us. When the ala¬ 
baster box of ointment was broken, the place was filled 
with the odor and Judas objected because of the expense. 

He said, ‘ ‘ This ought to have been sold and the money 
given to the poor.” Not because he cared for the poor, 
but the Spirit says he was a thief and carried the bag. 

There are many like him today who object to the ex¬ 
pense of these meetings and say the same thing, the 
money should be given to the poor, not because they 
care for the poor, for they give nothing to the poor 
themselves, but because they have the Devil in them. 

Satan had been hovering about Judas and suggesting 


92 


MEETING JESUS 


things to him and he listened to them and, step by step, 
he was being led to turn Jesns Christ down, and bye and 
bye he has fully made up his mind to betray his Lord 
and sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. 

As he goes out to do it, the night settles down upon the 
earth and it was dark, which was typical of the eternal 
night that settles down upon the man who goes out 
from Jesus. I believe he stands for a large class of 
people who are betraying Jesus Christ today just as 
surely as Judas did. They betray for the same thing, 
for the silver and gold of this world. Some betray him 
for the pleasures of this world and some for the sins of 
this world. They take these things and turn Jesus 
Christ down. 

As soon as Satan has entered into him, he goes out 
to this devilish work he has entered upon. 

We read in Matthew 26:24, “Woe unto that man! 
it had been good for that man if he had not been born. ’ 9 
This was said of that man Judas by One who “spake 
as never man spake.” Solomon was wise, but he could 
not be compared with Jesus Christ. There was nothing 
hid from Him, and He said of the man who went out 
to betray Him, “It had been better for that man if he 
had never been born. ’ ’ 

The Fate of Judas 

Jesus knew the end from the beginning. Where did 
Judas go when he left this world ? Did he go to Heaven ? 



A MODERN JUDAS 


93 


Hardly, for had he gone to Heaven Jesus would not have 
said it would have been better for him never to have 
been bom. He could not say that of a man who had gone 
to Heaven with the blood-washed and redeemed. 

Then, according to Jesus Christ, there was one man 
who lived and died who did not go to Heaven. What 
has happened to one man may happen again. Was he 
annihilated? Is death the end of this man when he 
comes to die? 

Jesus Christ did not say, “Woe unto this man, for he 
shall be annihilated.’* He said, “Woe unto this man, for 
it had been better for him never to have been born.” 
Death then cannot be annihilation; it cannot be cessation 
of consciousness or Jesus Christ would not have said, 
“Woe unto this man.” 

This could not be true of a wicked man if death ended 
all for every wicked man has some pleasure in life and, 
even if he suffered some for his sins, his death would 
end that suffering and he has had some pleasures in 
this world, for Hebrews 11:25 speaks of the pleasures 
of sin, and even if death ended all, there could be no woe 
then and it could not be said of him that it would have 
been better for him if he had never been born. 

Death Not Annihilation 

If death was annihilation, and the eternal end of all 
wicked men, if non-existence is better than existence, it 
must be because of the wretchedness of that existence. 



94 


MEETING JESUS 


If you do not think that is reasonable, you can see 
the truth of this couclusion by taking up the Scriptures 
and reading the things spoken of concerning Judas. 
You are forced to the conclusion that to be born into 
this world is to begin to exist forever, for death is not 
annihilation or cessation of consciousness. 

Do you think Jesus Christ was cruel? There must be 
misery and woe in the place where Judas has gone; you 
cannot logically reason it out any other way. 

Do you think Jesus Christ was cruel to talk that way? 
He was on His way to Gethsemane. He had said, < * Come 
unto me all ye that labor and are heavey-laden and I 
will give you rest.” He weeps over Jerusalem and said, 
‘ ‘ Oh Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets and killed 
them that are sent unto thee. How oft would I have 
gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chicks beneath her 
wing and ye would not.” 

He had said, “ You will not come unto Me that ye may 
have life.” Infinite love had gone to the limit. There 
was nothing left for Judas except justice. “It would 
have been better for that man if he had never been 
bom.” 

Am I cruel to re-echo the words which Jesus spoke? 

Was the angel that warned Lot to flee from Sodom 
cruel? Is the doctor cruel that tells you your child 
has diphtheria? He only speaks the truth. 



A MODERN JUDAS 


95 


Nothing Cruel About This 

Am I cruel to stand up and say to you that I believe 
Judas represents a class of people who are betraying 
Jesus Christ and that he says of that class who are 
turning Christ down that "it had been better for them 
if they had never been born?” 

He designates that man. He has laid his finger upon 
him. He pointed him out so plainly that anyone who 
reads the Bible can see and understand. This naturally 
leads us into the popular question, "Is life worth liv¬ 
ing?” I think some of you may be able to say, "Yes, 
it is,” and others will be compelled to say in the end, 
"No, it is not.” 

For those who do not betray Him, and turn Him 
down, it is worth living, but for the man who comes 
face to face with the gigantic problem and goes on re¬ 
jecting Him and betraying Him, a thousand times no. 
Life is not worth living, and it were better for that man 
if he had never been born. 

In Acts 1:25 we read that "Judas went to his own 
place.” Remorse settled down upon him and he com¬ 
mitted suicide. The real Christian in his right mind 
never commits suicide. 

‘ ‘ He went to his place. ’’ They buried him in the Pot¬ 
ter’s field. The Potter’s field is the place from which 
the potter has taken all of the good clay that he might 
mold it into vessels of usefulness. It would be a place 



96 


MEETING JESUS 


such as one where we would throw old tin cans and trash, 
etc. Now of all that goes to the potter’s field there is 
nothing of any use. It suggests to us that the Great 
Potter could find nothing in Judas that He could use 
and he went on the scrap heap. 

Down to the Potter’s Field 

The statement that he was buried in the Potter’s field 
is only the surface truth. It cannot just mean that he 
went down to the grave, for saint and sinner alike go 
down to the grave. Death is no respecter of persons, 
so the statement of the fact that Judas “went to his 
own place” must have a deeper meaning. 

In John 6:70-71, Jesus said, “Did not I choose you 
the twelve and one of you is the devil?” He spoke of 
Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon; for he it was that 
should betray Him, being one of the twelve. He called 
him a devil. 

Now turn to Matt. 25:41 and we are not left in doubt 
as to the place where Judas went. “Then shall ye 
depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre¬ 
pared for the devil and his angels.” 

Hell is prepared for the Devil and all devils. The 
Devil is a deceiver and a liar and all liars shall have 
their part in Hell according to Rev. 21:8. 



A MODERN JUDAS 


97 


Judas Went Straight to Hell 

Judas went out and it was night. If you just take 
line by line, you will see the steps. The man goes out 
and betrays Jesus Christ and turns Him down and he 
goes to his own place. The name of that place is Hell. 

I have met many people who do not believe in Hell 
and are trying to explain it away, but most of them 
are living in sin which will drag them down to Hell 
some day. 

Judas committed suicide and he went to his own 
place. The Bible does not leave us in doubt as to what 
kind of place Hell is where Judas went and where all 
go who betray Christ and turn Him down. 

Luke 16:22-23. “The rich man died and was buried 
and in Hell he lift up his eyes.” He saw, he felt, he 
cried, he remembered, he prayed, but he prayed too late. 
This is not cessation of consciousness nor is it being 
bereft of feelings. 

In Mark 9:44 to 48 we have some more description of 
this place. It is the place where “The worm dieth 
not and the fire is not quenched.” The worm is the 
natural outcome of corruption. It speaks of the gnaw¬ 
ing in anguish of sin and guilt. The misery that is gen¬ 
erated by the sinner’s own corruption. 

You will remember the opportunities that were pre¬ 
sented to you to be saved and serve Christ. The re¬ 
membrance of those things it seems to me will be worn 



98 


MEETING JESUS 


which will gnaw forever. Conscience will continue and 
character will be unchanged. He that is filthy will be 
filthy still. Then the fire. Fire speaks of the righteous 
judgment of God upon sin. When Jesus Christ talked 
about Hell, He described it in strong language. He 
speaks of it as fire and brimstone. God used the strong¬ 
est language He could to describe the condition of one 
in Hell. 

Turn it down and laugh and scoff and use Hell as a 
by-word if you will, but it is God Almighty’s Word 
and the day we are called to stand before a righteous 
God it will be no joke then. 

When Jesus Christ takes these things and makes them 
so simple and so plain and shows us the outcome of a 
sinful life, I cannot see how reasonable people can go on 
in sin, for the stream of sin naturally empties into the 
Gulf of Hell. 

How could Jesus be justified in using such language 
if there is nothing analogous to fire and brimstone, no 
such torment, which could only deceive and mislead the 
childlike inquirer who goes to God’s Word for the truth 
concerning these things? 

No childlike inquirer who goes to God’s Word would 
ever think of attempting to explain these things away 
unless some emissary of the Devil had come in who 
substitutes rationalism for the Word of God and who 
wrests the Scripture from its meaning, thereby attempt¬ 
ing to explain away Hell. 



A MODERN JUDAS 


99 


Long Sleep Is Devil’s Gospel 

The teaching of the annihilation theory that death 
ends all as taught by many people today is the Devil’s 
gospel. It is responsible for the countless numbers of 
suicides today. There is a charm of rest about it for a 
sin-spent and shipwrecked life. They want to believe 
that death ends all, and when sin has run its course 
and the pleasures of sin are gone and the misery of sin 
has come, then the sinner with his unbelief in God’s 
Word and his belief in the Devil’s gospel, thinking 
that death will end all his misery, commits suicide. 
That poor, deluded soul will find it is the beginning of 
greater misery. 

There are people who are serving God today who would 
testify to the fact that if they could have made them¬ 
selves believe that death ended all, would have continued 
in their sins and welcomed death, but they could not 
believe it so they repented and confessed their sins and 
are serving God at this time. 

I stood beside a man some time ago who said to me, 
‘‘Mr. Crabill, I had a gun loaded and the muzzle placed 
to my head, a string to the trigger, and I had everything 
all ready to blow my brains out.” That man was deep 
down in sin. 

I said, “Why did you not pull the trigger?” 

He said, “I could not force myself to believe that 
death ended all at the last minute; if I could have made 



100 


MEETING JESUS 


myself believe it, I would have willingly fired that gun. 
Somehow the teaching that I would go to Hell had been 
instilled and I could not but believe the truth that if 
I killed myself I would go to Hell.” That man, instead 
of committing suicide, repented and is serving God 
today. 

Gospel Cure for Suicide 

If there was a revival of the preaching of God’s truth 
concerning Hell, there would not be so many suicides 
today. Unbelief in God’s Word is responsible for all 
these. 

The officials of the Pennsylvania University grew des¬ 
perate because of the great number of suicides in that 
institution. They had education then by the car load, 
but education will not keep from sin or from suicide, 
nor from Hell. They didn’t know what to do, but finally 
they sent for Billy Sunday, the great evangelist, and 
seven hundred students were converted in one day, and 
I have not read of a suicide in that institution since. 
There is nothing like the unadulterated Word of God. 
Nothing that will preserve life and keep people from 
sin and death like it. 

Friend, are you following in the footsteps of Judas, 
betraying the Son of God, or are you trusting in God’s 
Word? 

I read in Isaiah 5:14 where Hell had to be enlarged 



A MODERN JUDAS 


101 


and the context shows it was because of the people’s 
sins. 

A man asked me once if I thought Heaven would be 
large enough. I told him I had never read that Heaven 
had to be enlarged, but I had read that Hell had to be 
enlarged because people will not believe God and give 
up their sins. 

Some of these times in that awful darkness into which 
you go when you turn Christ down, the end will come 
and you will go to your own place. 

Beginning of Greater Misery 

This old Bible, the only book that gives to us a revela¬ 
tion of the future, pictures to us an eternity without 
God as an awful place and plainly teaches us that death 
does not end all, but that death in sin is the beginning 
of greater misery than sin brings here, because the 
pleasures of sin are forever gone. 

In a certain town I met a man filled with bitterness 
against evangelists and revival meetings. His father 
was an elder in the Presbyterian church and his mother 
had loved and prayed for him for years. I strolled into 
the marble works one day where that man worked with 
four or five other men. I stood a moment and talked 
with them. This fellow had no respect for ministers 
and seemed to want to see how much filth and blasphemy 
he could get off when they were around. 

I invited them all to come to the meetings and the 



102 


MEETING JESUS 


next night he came. Unbelief was gripping that fel¬ 
low’s heart and he was hardening himself in sin. He 
“paddled his own canoe” and did not want anyone to 
interfere with his boat. He came into the men’s meeting 
the following Sunday afternoon. He listened to the 
truth and the first fellow to come down the aisle when 
the invitation was given was that man. 

As soon as the meeting was dismissed I saw the father 
coming down the aisle, and I noticed the boy look around 
as if he expected him. When he came near, the boy 
started toward his father and when they met, he threw 
his arms around his father’s neck and in the midst of 
his sobs, I heard him say, “Father, it is all right.” 

Better Than Betraying Jesus 

That is a great deal better than betraying Jesus and 
turning Him down and going on in sin. It brought 
rest of soul to him and it brought happiness to his old 
father’s heart and made his mother rejoice. That boy 
has followed me all over the country and I have had 
him speak from the platform. I am glad for the sake 
of all concerned that he swore allegiance to Jesus Christ 
and refused to be a traitor and turn Christ down any 
longer. 

Friends, I wonder if some of you have not been tread¬ 
ing the path that Judas trod. It was said of him, and 
if you go on it will be said of you, that “it had been 
good for that man if he had never been born.” 



A MODERN JUDAS 


103 


You had better come to Jesus Christ and as that young 
man put his arms around his father’s neck and kissed 
him, and said, “It is all right, father,” so put your 
arms around Jesus and not with a Judas kiss, but with 
a kiss of true devotion swear allegiance to Him forever. 

The sun will shine tomorrow for you more beautiful 
than ever before if you do. Yes, the darkness will flee 
away, and you will know it is all right. It is reasonable; 
it is manly. Every decent and respectable person in 
the community who sees you take your stand will say, 
“I want to do right and serve Jesus.” 

It is a little thing to do but it will lead you to Heaven. 
Come to Jesus and do it tonight. 




SATAN’S SIEVE 


Luke 22:31, 32. And the Lord said, ‘ ‘ Simon, Simon, 
behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift 
you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith 
fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren.’’ 

Simon Peter is to me one of the most attractive charac¬ 
ters in the Word of God; because I see so many of his 
real human characteristics cropping out. He is continu¬ 
ally blundering and making mistakes. Someone has said 
the blunders do all the work. Whether this be true or 
not, there is one thing I am sure of, and that is, if we are 
all so extremely careful for fear we may make a mistake, 
we will never do anything, and in doing that we make the 
greatest mistake of all, in doing nothing. 

Simon Peter was a fisherman, a business man, if you 
please. He had hired servants, and this would indicate 
that he was not a pauper, by any means. He lived in 
his own house or in the house of his mother-in-law on the 
north shore of Galilee. He was not entirely ignorant as 
we might think, for every Jew knew how to read, and 
Peter had what we would call a common school edu¬ 
cation. He was only ignorant as to the depths of the 
Rabbinical education. His life on the treacherous sea 
made him a hardy fellow, bold and daring. We would 


106 


MEETING JESUS 


say he was forward in his make-up, and this characteris¬ 
tic fitted him to become spokesman for the twelve later. 

The same Simon implies hearer, and it would seem 
that he was not only ready to talk, but would listen to 
what people said as well. He would have been in the 
front seat at every revival meeting in this day, ready to 
hear and then go out and talk it over with others. If 
there was anything going on in town, Peter would have 
wanted to have known about it, and the next day, down 
at the fishing smack, he would, no doubt, have had all the 
fishermen around him listening to his opinion, and it 
seems he laid emphasis on things, occasionally with swear 
words, and no doubt, was a good story-teller as well. He 
had a good deal of influence among his own class, and 
would have swung things politically in his own section, 
had he been living in this day. 

Greater Than Politics 

However, God had greater things for him than politics, 
and He sought him for a place in the kingdom that gave 
him such prominence that we will all want to see him 
and have a talk with him by and by. 

Simon Peter was brought to Jesus by the efforts of his 
own brother, Andrew. They were partners in the fish¬ 
ing business. Andrew had been brought to Jesus by the 
ministry of John the Baptist, and particularly by his 
sermon on, “Behold the Lamb of God.” As soon as he 
was sure of his faith he went after his partner. First, 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


107 


I suppose, because of his personal interest in Peter, and 
it may have been he thought if he reached Peter that 
would settle the thing with all the rest of the fishermen, 
for Peter would just go after the whole bunch and bring 
them to Christ, and I guess he was not far mistaken as to 
that. 

Peter got the first real glimpse of himself on the shore, 
after he had been fishing all night and had caught noth¬ 
ing; as we have it recorded in the fifth chapter of Luke’s 
gospel. Jesus had borrowed his boat to talk from, and 
then to pay the tired, wet, and dissapointed fisherman, he 
said, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets. ” 
You can imagine how that old experienced fisherman, 
knowing that it had passed the time of day to catch fish, 
received the suggestion from a carpenter, that had spent 
his time away back inland, who he thought knew how to 
make cattle yokes or plows, perhaps, but what did he 
know about catching fish; and he said there is nothing 
doing in the fish business, nevertheless at thy word I will 
let down the net, and when he did he caught so many that 
they had to call for extra help to take care of them. 
Peter went down on his face at Jesus’ knees and said: 
“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” He, no 
doubt was sincere in this, but he hardly expected Jesus to 
depart, neither did he want him to depart. He saw how 
sinful and vile he was. Like Job of old he abhorred 
himself and like Isaiah he was saying: “Woe is me, I 
am undone.” If Simon was to become Cephas, a stone, 



108 


MEETING JESUS 


he must see that he is Simon. If used to catch men, he 
must be thoroughly caught himself. 

If he is to teach others that all flesh is grass, he must 
see the unstability and weakness of the natural man. 
That was the expression of a broken and contrite heart, 
and we have the divine response. “Fear not, from 
henceforth thou shall catch men.’ ’ The wound was deep 
but grace was deeper. He brought his ship to land and 
closed up business. You would not have suspected that 
he would ever go back to it. He just forsook all and 
followed Christ. I count that a whole-hearted consecra¬ 
tion. There was a deep work wrought in his soul after 
he had launched out into the deep in Gennesaret. There 
was no halting between two opinions, no double minded¬ 
ness here. A man who tries to keep one eye on the world 
will soon be found to have no eyes on Christ and both 
eyes on the world. Peter was whole-hearted as far as 
starting was concerned. 

He Started Right 

If we find mistakes and blunders it was not because 
he didn’t start right. Peter started right. A man may 
blunder, but if he can meet the challenge of the Lord 
with a “Thou knowest that I love Thee,” he will come 
out all right. Peter with all his faults did love Christ. 
His zeal, his energy, his real devotedness of heart, no 
man can for a moment call in question, but these very 
qualities, beautiful as they are, led him not infrequently 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


109 


into a position of such prominence as to render his weak 
points all the more conspicuous. He jumped out of his 
boat to run to Jesus on the boisterous sea, and then 
completely broke down and was about to sink for lack of 
faith. He took his eye off the Lord and fixed it on the 
rough seas. Faith can walk on rough seas, but it must 
have its eye on the Christ. The grand motto for the life 
of faith is, “Looking unto Jesus.” He acted on the 
word of Jesus on starting, he must have the power of His 
presence to continue or he will sink. 

The combination of these two will ever yield a success¬ 
ful career. It is one thing to make a good start, another 
thing to make good progress. It is one thing to get out 
of the ship, that is easy; somebody may rock the boat for 
you. It’s another thing to walk on the water. Peter 
made the start well, but broke down in his course. He 
cried, “Lord save me,” and found himself in the arms 
of his Saviour. If Peter failed in faith Jesus did not fail 
in grace. If Peter failed to reach Christ, Christ did not 
fail to reach him, and so it ever is. That was only one 
failure, there was a worse one to come, and I would like 
to whisper to you that Peter’s worst failure came from 
self-confidence. He boasted at the “Last Supper,” 
“Though all shall be offended yet will not I.” We do 
not question his sincerity, he meant all he said, but he 
had not the remotest idea of what he was about to do. 
He was ignorant of himself, and I think that you will 
find that ignorance and self-confidence go together. The 



110 


MEETING JESUS 


more self is known the more it will be distrusted. When 
the Lord told him about what He was about to do, he 
replied, “Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not 
deny Thee.’ ’ Friends, if you are not kept each moment 
by the grace of God, you are capable of most anything. 

Because of his self-confidence he failed to watch and 
pray. If he had felt his weakness he would have sought 
for divine strength; he would have cast himself upon 
God for grace to help in time of need. This boastful 
fellow went to sleep in the hour when he ought to have 
been most awake; drew a sword when he ought to have 
bowed his head, and cut off Malchus’ ear, when he ought 
to have been testifying, in the ears, the truth concerning 
his Master. How he missed the spirit of the Master in 
resorting to carnal weapons ? By these we cut off the ear 
and hinder people from hearing the message of truth, in 
our fleshly enthusiasm. 

Sits With Enemies 

Next he follows afar off when he ought to have been 
near. He sits with the enemies of his Lord, when he 
ought to have been in separation. He warms at their 
fire, but was freezing up spiritually. It is a dangerous 
place for a Christian to sit with the enemies of Christ. 
The fact that he does is evidence that decline has set in 
and has made serious progress. A man in that condi¬ 
tion with that spirit is apt to remind you of a horse with 
its ears back, a mule with his heels in the air, a goat on 



SATAN'S SIEVE 


111 


his hind legs, a cat with curvature of the spine, a bee 
that has gone out of business at one end, and opened up 
business at the other; of a blind snake in August, strik¬ 
ing at everything, of an Irishman who was washed ashore 
on a strange island and walking inland he met a citizen. 
Coming up to him he said: “Have you a government ?" 

He said, “Yes." 

“Well, I'm agin' it," he replied. 

They have slipped the bridle off or gotten out of 
the halter. They won’t stand hitched. When you look 
for them there is an empty halter, and the good Lord 
only knows where they are. They are capering over the 
plains with the zebras, bronchos, wild steers, and stupid 
asses, saddled and subjected to be ridden by any that can 
catch them, and the devil always has runners out for all 
such. 

Now comes the accusation by the maid, “Thou wast 
with Jesus of Nazareth,' ’ but he denied Him. Again ac¬ 
cused by another, “Thou art a Galilean, thy speech be- 
trayeth thee." He said, “I know not what thou sayest." 
The third time he was accused he denied Him, swearing 
that he knew Him not, the cock crew. And Peter re¬ 
membered the word of the Lord, “Before the cock crow 
twice, thou shalt deny me thrice," and he cast a glance 
at Jesus and Jesus looked on him and poor Peter went 
out and wept bitterly. Oh, for a look tonight from the 
Son of God upon everyone in this place that has denied 
Him that will bring us to tears of repentance. That 



112 


MEETING JESUS 


look broke Peter’s heart. Will it not break yours? And 
will the tears not sweep from your eyelids and trickle 
down your cheeks, as you think of His goodness and your 
own sinfulness. 

If you had said to Peter, “You will be swearing to¬ 
morrow just like you used to, when you would break an 
oar or tear your net,” he would have said like one of old, 
“Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?” but 
that is what he did. 

Peter needed to be sifted just because of all this: sifted 
as wheat, not as chaff. The chaff will be burned with 
unquenchable fire, but thank God by and by the wheat 
will be gathered into the garner. Peter was put in the 
Devil’s sieve just because he was wheat. Have you been 
in Satan’s sieve? He may not use the same sieve for 
all, but I question whether any one ever gets through 
without this sifting process. It gets rid of the chaff in 
us, and helps people see the real wheat. If you are being 
sifted in Satan’s sieve it is because you are wheat, and 
while the sifting is not a pleasant process, we ought to 
praise God for it. Wheat has in it a germ of real life 
and will stand sifting for it has weight and body to it. 

Prays for Saved Out of the World 

Hear now the gracious words of Jesus, “I have prayed 
for thee.” Whom does Jesus pray for? In that great 
priestly prayer in the seventeenth of John he said, “I 
pray not for the world, but I pray for these whom Thou 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


113 


hast given me out of the world.” "He ever liveth to 
make intercession for us,” (Heb. 7:25) who are wheat. 
Let us thank God and take courage brother, for His 
prayers are heard. 

He prayed for Peter, what for? That he would not 
deny Him ? No. ‘ ‘ I have prayed for thee that thy faith 
fail not.” While Satan sifts the saint, the Lord prays. 

"And when thou art turned again strengthen thy 
brethren.” Jesus could see on through to the end, and 
knew after the sifting process, that Peter would be a 
help and a blessing to others. 

In Peter’s fall we see the frailty and folly of man. In 
his restoration we learn the grace, wisdom and faithful¬ 
ness of our Lord Jesus Christ. The fall was indeed 
great, terrible and humilating. The restoration was 
complete and marvelous. Simon Peter never forgot 
either the one or the other. He will remember them with 
wonderous love and praise throughout the countless 
ages of eternity. Remember this, that Satan can only 
sift wheat, while Jesus prays. 

Christ had Peter upon his heart, and to the woman 
who met the angel and Jesus after resurrection, he makes 
special mention of Peter, and that he would see Him in 
Galilee, but he saw him privately before Peter ever got 
to Galilee. Yet the meeting that seemed to mean so 
much for Peter was back on the shore of Galilee. He 
had been fishing again, and had had a bad night, poor 
luck as fishermen say. The morning was dawning. Oh, 



114 


MEETING JESUS 


such a morning as it was; the mists were beginning to 
disappear. Jesus appeared standing on the shore. May 
the Lord send the north wind to this place to dispel the 
mists, and then let the comforting south wind blow that 
will bring spiritual warmth, causing the spices (graces) 
to flow. S. of S. 4:16, and help us to see Him and make 
Him real. Oh, that God might help every contrite 
heart, like Peter’s look until they see Him, and then like 
Peter, I believe we will gird on the fisherman’s coat 
and plunge in haste, to get to Jesus. Don’t you who 
have wandered want to come back to Him tonight ? Peter 
waited neither for ship or companions, he plunged in 
alone. He did the right thing. He had been out of 
touch with Jesus, and was hungry to get back and have 
that blessed fellowship again. 

There had been another night of fruitless fishing, but 
when Jesus appeared and commanded the net to be cast 
on the right side of the ship, they enclosed a multitude 
of fishes, and the floundering fish and it being just day¬ 
break, and, I presume a rooster was crowing somewhere, 
you don’t need to have much of an imagination to im¬ 
agine what was running through Peter’s mind at that 
time. He must have been reminded of a previous fish¬ 
ing scene, when he felt his sinfulness, and of the crowing 
of the rooster, that he had heard at the judgment hall, 
at the time of his denial. I know and you know just 
about how Peter felt. 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


115 


Test of Peter’s Love 

Then there came that breakfast, the last Jesus ever had 
with Peter. How their hearts must have burned within 
them, as they sat about that fire and breakfasted that 
morning, and after breakfast came the heart to heart 
talk. How natural, and the conversation is directed to 
Simon Peter and a very pointed question is put to him, 
“ Simon Peter, lovest thou me more than these f” I am 
not sure, but I think he means the nets and the fishing 
tackle; his business; his means of livelihood. 4 4 If you do 
love me more than these, leave them and go feed my 
lambs.” Love is the only acceptable motive in service. 
We must love Him or we can never render any acceptable 
service. 

A young man and his betrothed had quarreled and 
broken off. He took a fever a few days later and was 
taken to a hospital, and was near death’s door. One 
morning his doctor met the girl on the sidewalk and said, 
“I have a friend of yours in the hospital.” 

“I know you have,” she said, “and I am glad to hear 
that he is much better.” 

“ He is not better, ’ ’ the doctor said. 

She was startled and manifested surprise and deep 
concern. “Why, doctor, I heard he was better and the 
fever was broken, what is the matter ? ’ ’ 

The doctor called the girl by name and said, “He is 
dying for your love.” 

She dropped her beautiful eyes to the sidewalk for a 



116 


MEETING JESUS 


minute, then turned and bidding the doctor come along 
she walked into the florist’s shop and selected a beautiful 
basket of choice flowers, among which were lilies and 
roses. She wrote her name on the card, handed it and 
the flowers to the doctor and said, ‘ 1 Please, sir, give him 
that with my love.” 

He said, “I will and it will be the best medicine to 
help him.” 

When he went to the hospital he found his patient 
in a nervous, restless sleep. He sat the girl’s contribu¬ 
tion on the table, and slipping behind the door, knowing 
that he would sleep but a few minutes, waited to see 
what would happen. When the boy’s eyes came open 
he looked at the flowers, breathed their fragrance, and 
putting them closer he noticed the card, read the name 
and the words “with love.” He clutched it with both 
hands and tried to rise, looking about the room. As the 
doctor stepped out with a broad smile, he said, “Doctor, 
where did you get that?” 

“You know where I got it,” he said. 

“Doctor, did she send it herself?” 

“Yes, she selected it and wrote that card with her own 
hand.” 

It is needless to say, the patient was soon well. 

Christ is sending tokens of His love, greater than that, 
and I want to ask if there is some response in your heart 
tonight? “Lovest thou me?” Jesus said unto Peter 
the second time, “Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou me?” 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


117 


He said unto him, “Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I 
love Thee.” 

Christ said unto him, “Tend My sheep.” 

He said unto him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonas, 
“Lovest thou Me?” 

It may have reminded him of of the threefold denial 
and he said, “Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou 
knowest that I love Thee.” 

Jesus said unto him, “Feed my sheep.” 

Jesus was going to the very root of the matter. It is 
not enough to crop the sprouts of evil, the root must be 
got at. We lack depth and seriousness; we have been 
too light, too flippant. We can only be trustworthy when 
we have real love for Him. Here was a restored soul 
restored in conscience, in heart and if you ask what 
remains, I will say, restored in service. God’s grace 
restoreth my soul. 

God’s Grace Does All 

Government drove Adam out of the Garden of Eden 
and never replaced him, but grace announced the vic¬ 
torious seed of the woman. Government kept Moses 
out of the Promised Land, but Grace conducted him to 
Pisgah’s top. Government sent a perpetual sword to the 
house of David. Grace made the son of Bath-Sheba the 
wisest and wealthest of Israel’s kings. Peter was restor¬ 
ed by God’s grace, not only to catch fish, but to feed 



118 


MEETING JESUS 


lambs and shepherd sheep and strengthen brethren, a 
work that is very dear to the heart of Christ. Now he 
says, “Follow me.” And when Jesus said “Good-by” 
Peter opened the kingdom of Heaven to the Jews on the 
day of Pentecost and later, accusing them of denying the 
Holy One and the Just, but promised them that if they 
would repent and be converted that their sins would be 
blotted out and that times of refreshing would come 
from the presence of the Lord. He had gone through 
that experience himself, in denying the Lord, and had 
repented, and was now enjoying the blessed fellowship 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he knew what Christ had 
done for him He would do for others, if they would give 
Him a chance. He, by experiences, knew the way. Later, 
after several prosecutions, he rejoiced that he was count¬ 
ed worthy to suffer for the Lord, and wrote some of the 
sweetest of all the New Testament, about faithfulness in 
suffering. He had been through the sieve. 

You know, I believe Christ is searching and yearning 
for every wanderer to return. I turn to the 15th chap¬ 
ter of Luke, and read about the shepherd searching for 
the lost sheep until he finds it; then I see the woman 
sweeping the house until she finds the silver that was 
lost. But the poor prodigal, the wanderer, had to come 
back home. He said, in desperation, “I will arise and go 
to my father.” We have the responsibility here of the 
shepherd, the responsibility of the Church, and the re¬ 
sponsibility of the Son. Christ is seeking for the wan- 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


119 


derer, the Church is seeking for the lost. When the 
wanderer will turn his face homeward he will soon find 
himself in the loving embrace of a father’s love. 

A good while ago, an old woman tripped and fell 
from the top of a stone stairway as she was coming out 
of a police station in Boston. They called the ambulance 
and took her to the hospital, and the doctor said she 
could not live more than a day. After the nurse had 
won her confidence the old woman said, “I have traveled 
from California, stopping at every city of importance 
between San Francisco and Boston, visiting two places 
always, the police station and the hospital. My boy 
went away and did not tell me where he was going, so 
I have sold all my property and made this journey to 
seek him out. Some day,” she said, “he may come into 
this hospital, and if he does tell him there were two who 
never gave him up.” 

When the night came and the doctor standing beside 
her said, “It is now but a question of a few minutes,” 
the nurse bent over her to say, “Tell me the names of 
the two and I will tell your son if I see him.” 

With trembling lips and eyes overflowing with tears 
she said, “Tell him that the two were God and his 
mother.” Oh, friends, some loved one is interested in 
you and God yearns for your return. Think of His love, 
and think of the service He wants you for, and come 
back home tonight. 

I know of a young man whose father was very sick, 



120 


MEETING JESUS 


with recovery doubtful, and his condition was perhaps 
worse because of the waywardness of the young man. 
The boy had fallen in love, or thought he had, with a 
giddy girl, as silly as himself. His mother was worn by 
weeks of care for the father and care for the boy’s soul, 
and was in poor health. But all of this did not seem to 
touch his hardened heart. He came in one night about 
eleven o’clock, and the mother met him at the door and 
said, “Your father has not slept tonight: he knows you 
are out. He can never get well if you persist.” The 
boy pushed her aside and hurried upstairs without giv¬ 
ing her a promise or word of hope. The next night he 
was out later than ever. She again met him at the door. 
She had been crying and said, “My darling boy, you 
have been killing me and your precious father, won’t you 
—.” But before she could finish he stepped by and 
ran, upstairs and went to bed. 

Finding he could not sleep he came down under the 
pretense of getting a drink of water. His mother was 
in her room kneeling in her night attire. He heard her 
say, “Oh, my God, whatever it takes save my poor 
wandering boy.” She arose to find him standing there 
and she put her arms tenderly about him and said, “My 
precious boy, won’t you—” But his hard heart and 
stubborn disposition made him tear away from her em¬ 
brace, passing by the door where his father lay so near 
to the gates of death. He went back to his room without 
giving one word of comfort or ray of hope to his godly 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


121 


parents. He traveled with company that got him in 
trouble, and finding a warrant out for him he went into 
hiding for three or four days, against his father’s en¬ 
treaties and his mother’s tears. 

Slipping back one night he tip toed to the window of 
his father’s room and looked in through the blinds to 
where his father lay. The rest of the family were about 
him and this wayward boy was being discussed. The 
older sister said, “You have done your duty by him, 
and now turn him loose.” 

His brother said, “That’s what I say. There is noth¬ 
ing in him anyway.” 

Finally even his mother said, ‘ ‘ I think they are right. 
You are killing yourself and he doesn’t appreciate it. 
You had better let him go.” 

The boy heard his father say, “Wife and children, I 
will never give up that boy until the gates of Heaven 
click upon his back.” 

That was what a trembling, sin-bound, girl-struck boy 
heard through the window, and through the blinds of 
tears; and those words melted his heart. He knew his 
father loved him and he said then and there, “I will 
change my life.” He had gone deep into debt for 
autos, flowers and confections, to show his girl a good 
time. He had borrowed money from his father’s friends 
to supplement his own funds, not dreaming that he 
was their victim. One day the liveryman asked him to 
settle, and he had nothing to settle with, and bills began 



122 


MEETING JESUS 


to come thick and fast. The boy went to his father, 
fully awakened to his difficulty and the enormity of his 
sin and the real worth of a friend dawning upon him. 
With downcast eyes and a voice that sobbed out in an¬ 
guish he said, * 4 Father, I am in trouble.’’ 

The good father replied, “What is it, my boy?” 

* ‘ I hate so much to tell you, but I have disobeyed you 
in many ways and I have gone into debt all over town 
and they are calling for their money and I cannot pay 
it.” 

“How much is it?” the father asked. “I will help 
you out of all trouble to the extent of my means.” 

The boy stammered, “It is quite an amount.” 

“Is it ten dollars?” 

“Oh, it is more than that.” 

“Is it twenty-five dollars?” 

“More than that.” 

After another guess or two the father said, “Wait a 
minute.” He arose and walked out on his cane slowly 
into his mother’s room and said, “Pet, open the trunk 
and let me have that sack.” The boy knew his father 
referred to an emergency sack, containing a little gold, 
which stood between his mother and starvation and kept 
the sister and the baby from hunger, and that which 
she cherished much in view of the death of her husband. 
With a voice that trembled she asked him not to take 
that from her. He simply said, 11 Give it to me; our boy 
is in trouble.” 



SATAN’S SIEVE 


123 


He took the sack and handed it to the boy, saying, 
“Take this my boy, go and settle all your debts and 
bring what is left back; it is all we have, and promise 
me you will live for God and do right from now on and 
it will be all right with me and your mother, and I will 
never mention it again.” 

That is the way God forgives sin. Won’t you come 
back home ? 







THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


Text: Psalm 55:18. “He hath delivered my soul in 
peace from the battle that was against me.” 

The first thing we do when we come into this world 
is to cry; the last thing we do is to groan. Life is full 
of trouble, temptations and trials. 

We come into the world without our consent and go 
out against our will. The journey is rough and rocky. 
When we are children we want candy and can’t get it, 
but when we are old we can get all the candy we want, 
yet we don’t want it. We spend the first half of our 
lives wishing we were men and women, and the last half 
wishing we were boys and girls again. 

If you are poor, people say you are a poor manager; 
if you get rich, you are dishonest. If you give freely of 
your wealth, you do it for show; if you get all you can 
and can all you get, you are a stingy old hound. If you 
die young, you had a great future before you; if you 
lived to be old, you missed your calling. Everything 
seems to be adverse to your advancement. Every inch 
of territory must be fought for. Nothing comes to him 
who waits, but the dust of the procession, and the man 
who is always standing by waiting for something to turn 
up, will find that the first thing that will turn up for 
him without his own effort, will be the sod, and the grave 
digger will do that. If you are all the while waiting for 


126 


MEETING JESUS 


the last bell to ring, you will have educated yourself 
to be listening all the while for the whistle to blow, and 
the person who does that is a real “day-go,” no matter 
what the nationality, and never gets very far up the 
ladder. 

Everything battles for life and development. The 
plant life has to struggle against the insects that may 
destroy it. The animal gnaws it down, or bites it off 
time and time again, or its life may be literally tramped 
out. The small fish must keep on the move and in safe 
waters, or it will be eaten by the larger ones. The 
animal is in constant danger of being destroyed by its 
own species or another. They tell us that even in our 
own bodies the good germs and the bad ones are con¬ 
stantly fighting to throw off the bad germs. Most every 
profession in life seems to be crowded full and their is 
competition on every hand, so existence is a battle no 
matter where we turn. While life has been life it has 
been a struggle. The strongest, most robust, and best 
equipped have always won in the end. Our hardest 
battles are not fought on public fields with friends in 
the grandstand to cheer us on, but they must be fought 
alone without human assistance. 

You young people are in the morning of life. It will 
soon be noon and then there are only a few hours until 
sunset. To the Christian man or woman there is coming 
a better day, and the knowledge of this ought to spur us 
on and put iron and oak in the fibre of our being. Re- 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


127 


member that Christ keeps the good wine until the last. 
We should empty ourselves into the task of being pure 
and noble. If you were a cheat in the schoolroom, you 
will probably be a cheat the rest of your life. Don’t 
juggle with your conscience, keep it sensitive, ‘‘Keep 
thyself pure.” 

Have a purpose in life; make it a good one; aim high. 
There is a story of a ragged dirty girl who saw a lovely 
statue, and after seeing it she went home, washed her face 
and combed her tangled hair. Going that way the next 
day she saw it again and went home to mend her 
garments. Day by day as she passed it, each time she 
did something to mend her ways. The course was 
pursued until her very life was transformed. Boys, 
don’t loaf around billiard halls and choose for your read¬ 
ing “Dead Wood Dick” and feed yourself on detective 
stories. Don’t spend your evenings at the picture shows 
watching A1 Jennings rob trains, but read that which 
will inspire you to nobility. 

You need more than an educated intellect. Numbers 
of college graduates are found every year among the 
hoboes of northern New York who come here to pick 
apples during the harvest. A friend of mine had num¬ 
bers of them work for him. We boarded once at a hotel 
that was run on a starvation rate by a graduate of 
Colgate College, while his wife and daughter did the 
work. A young man went to college and painted a big 
“V” over the door of his room. Someone asked him 



128 


MEETING JESUS 


what that meant and he said “Valedictorian,” and that 
is what he became. But the battles are not all fought 
when you have won that prize. Do not forget in your 
life that little things count. A telegram read: “Note 
good for any amount. They had only made the mistake 
of adding the small letter “e.” It should have read: 
11 Not good for any amount. ’ ’ This caused much trouble. 
You will find that small things, in your life, count like 
that. A student at a Bible school wrote home for a cake 
recipe and made one according to directions. At little 
flour, egg, sugar, etc. The students declared that it was 
tooth proof, water proof, and almost bullet proof. 

We need careful preparation for the battle. Germany 
gives us a striking illustration of this careful prepara¬ 
tion for the battle. She was ready for the struggle 
when the bell rang. We should lay the right foundation 
and we can never do that by wild oat sowing. “Wild 
oats” is a polite way of expressing the idea of dissipa¬ 
tion, and to the initiated it always carries with it the 
underlying notion of a bad,life; it is an expression that 
we use to minimize sin; to pretend that uncleanness is 
permissible in a young life; a thing to be overlooked, 
tolerated, excused, and then we hear people say: ‘ * They 
will turn out all right, they are just sowing their wild 
oats.” The mass of them never turn out, they turn 
into hell in the end. This is against the law of God and 
common sense. There is not a single grain of reason in 
these statements of sowing wild oats. That teaching 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


129 


says, “You need not care in the early part of your life 
what you do; you can put any kind of material into the 
foundation of your life and it will be all right in the 
end.” The salvation of our souls is a business proposi¬ 
tion and I declare that there is not one particle of busi¬ 
ness sense in this common idea of wild oat sowing. Put 
the idea into any business you may mention and see 
how it works out. Take farming; the farmer doesn’t 
cultivate his land by letting weeds grow all over his 
farm. A farmer now is looked upon as a loafer who 
permits weeds to grow in any corner of his field. He 
watches every inch of it. No part is set aside for wild 
oats. When an architect or builder is planning for a 
sky-scraper or bridge it is the foundation that is his 
source of anxiety. They get down to rock, no matter 
how far they have to go, and if they cannot reach it they 
put in a substitute. They never build on straw, weeds, 
broken bottles or trash. 

The stock raiser does not turn his colts, calves and 
lambs loose to be torn by barbed wire fences and to sink 
in swamps, with only mud puddles to drink from and 
then say they will grow up all right. He knows better. 
The grocer does not let his customers wander where they 
please and take what they want. He does not neglect 
his windows until they are covered with dirt and grease, 
nor does he allow the vegetables to lie in the windows 
until they rot. Only flies and scavengers are attracted 



130 


MEETING JESUS 


by such as that, and he could not expect a great business 
later by such conduct. 

Take your health. You must pay good attention to 
your child. Don’t let it lie in filth and let microbes 
fill its body and lungs and then say it will be healthy 
and beautiful when it grows older. 

We are careful to start right in all of this and if you 
want to build a lofty soul don’t believe the devil’s lie 
about wild oats sowing and build upon a garbage heap. 
If you begin wrong and have a shaky foundation your 
building will not amount to much; bad habits are not 
easy to break, and the longer you are in the clutches of 
bad habits you will find the harder it is to break them off. 
This thing of stopping when you are of a mind to is all 
nonsense. This idea of settling down by and by may be 
true, but you will settle beneath a mound of earth and 
you will keep settled there for a long time. Before you 
get into the hopper you had better look to see what kind 
of grist is coming out. The baseball player may spend 
hours of training to be at his best to battle for a pennant. 
The football player must have preparation in hardening 
himself to stand the strain and the bumps and the rush 
of the forces that are against him. The prize fighter 
must be temperate and spend long days in training or 
he will weaken at the critical moment and lose the battle. 
Everywhere we look in the professional or business world 
we see that the well prepared are those who succeed. 

J have read of a salesman who was always getting 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


131 


ready to sell goods. Before he got ready he lost his job. 

I heard of a man who was always planning to do some¬ 
thing great; he intended to write a book. He never got 
started, but died in obscurity. In his last days he talked 
about the book he intended to write. 

I read of another man who devoted all his time and 
ability to making money. “Some day I am going to 
take it easy and enjoy myself/’ he said. He died while 
working hard, and his children, that he neglected to 
bring up properly, made fools of themselves spending 
his hard-earned money. 

Remember: 

II If you can not on the ocean sail among the swiftest fleet 
Rocking on the highest billows laughing at the storms 

you meet 

You can stand among the sailors anchored yet within 
the bay 

You can lend a hand to help them as they launch their 
boats away.” 

Get ready to do something. If you can’t drive the 
train, grease the wheels. 

A fellow was drunk and staggering on his way home. 
He met a rattlesnake and said to it: “Blaze away, I 
was never better prepared for you than I am now.” 

At a prayer meeting one night a fellow got up and 
gave his testimony and told about a locomotive, saying 
he would like to be in the Christian life, like the head 
light on the locomotive, leading the way and giving light. 



132 


MEETING JESUS 


When he was through another fellow got up and said 
he would like to be the whistle of the locomotive and 
warn people. Another said he would like to be the 
driver and help bear the load and shove her along. 
Another got up and said: “You can be the headlight or 
the whistle or the driver, but I will be satisfied to be the 
old dirty coal and be consumed to make her go if God 
will permit me.’ , I believe that fellow had the spirit 
of usefulness in this old world. 

Many are handicapped in this life because of a weak 
or sickly body. You must have health to win the battle; 
a clean heart and pure mind will be a mighty impetus 
toward building a healthly and strong body. 

When Robert Speer left college the president said: 
11 There goes the strongest man spiritually and physically 
that ever left this institution. ’ ’ 

A bad disposition will handicap you in life’s battle. 
If you are thoughtless, cross, ill-tempered and grouchy 
it is bound to make the way rough and hard for you. It 
doesn’t cost much to be kind, and one can prepare for 
the battle by training himself along this line. The 
scripture says: “A soft answer turneth away wrath.” 
Wear a smile, it will win you friends and help you 
through many a hard place, and may keep the under¬ 
taker away a little longer. 

Form good habits. The perfume of liquor on your 
breath, and the yellow on your fingers from rolling coffin 
nails will not commend you to any firm. Don’t inhabit 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


133 


questionable places, for the smut of the place will be 
found sticking to you. Choose amusements that will be 
elevating; many a young man has become dishonest be¬ 
cause he must take his best girl to the show night after 
night, and being financially not able to do it, he had 
to steal the money from his employer. 

A man who went to the theatre was beckoned by an 
usher who said: “This way to the pit.” He turned 
around and ran; he did not want to go to the pit. 

The moving pictures of A1 Jennings did not inspire 
the youth of Oklahoma to noble deeds, but the very 
opposite proved true. 

When Mr. Edison was traveling through Florida he 
was asked to play cards to fill out the game. He said, 
“No, sir, I thank you gentlemen. I have better use for 
my brains than that. ” You had better have that quality 
of brains that may be employed at better business than 
playing cards. 

It will not depreciate your value by being a God¬ 
fearing person. If you are you will be a substantial, 
trustworthy individual that people can depend upon. 

Mr. Beasch, one of the leading insurance men of 
Syracuse, N. Y., told me in his own office one day how he 
secured his position with the insurance company. He 
said he came there from Moravia, as a boy, to apply for 
a position. There were twenty-six applicants for that 
same job. He was embarrassed, and when asked for his 
letter of recommendation handed him his church letter 



134 


MEETING JESUS 


by mistake. That mistake gave him his position. He is 
now one of the company’s leading men. 

Daniel was made a great man by the king because he 
was a God-fearing man and could be trusted. God made 
him a great man before the king did. Daniel had pur¬ 
posed in his heart not to defile himself, and that is a good 
purpose for every young person to have. A floater is a 
bad thing. Have a purpose in your life, and do all 
comman things in an uncommon way. 

Someone said to Daniel Webster, “What are you 
going to do when you get to be a man?” 

He answered, “A lawyer.” 

“But the profession is overrun.” 

Webster said, “There is plenty of room at the top, 
and I am going where there is plenty of room.” 

I noticed, on the ship that I crossed the ocean in, some 
time ago, that the waves beating against the side of the 
vessel would knock it out of its course every little while, 
but the pilot would steer her back in line every time. 
Keep your head the right way, no watter how the wind 
blows, and you will head into the right port. 

Be true and honest, not a fakir. I heard of a street 
fakir once that got up on the street corner and said, “I 
have the honor of offering you the finest brand of soap 
ever made.” A farmer bought a cake and went home, 
took a bath and afterwards his own dog bit him. 

David climbed from the sheepfold to the throne be- 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


135 


cause God could trust him. God said he was a man after 
his own heart. 

Emerson said, “Preach a better sermon; write better 
books; give a better lecture; and although you live in 
the wilderness the world will beat a path through the 
weeds and rap at your door. There are open doors for 
you, and open arms for you everywhere, if you are true. 

You girls should marry the right man, and you boys 
should marry the right girl, and not wait too long to do 
it. I would advise you boys not to marry a light¬ 
headed, frivolous, society doll. If you do you are handi¬ 
capped for life. Marry a woman that has good sense. 
If she has that she will be interested in you and your 
welfare and take pride in making pleasant the nest you 
call home, and if you are the man you ought to be 
you will spend all the time you possibly can in that 
nest. 

Live so a true woman can respect and feel proud of 
you. If she is a true woman and fit to become the 
mother of your children, she will be a true Christian 
and fill your home with sunshine, and you will certainly 
be an ingrate if you do not appreciate and stand faith¬ 
fully with her for God and right. Know what you are 
getting. Don’t buy calico by lamp light, the colors 
might not stand. Look out when she has her war paint 
on; keep your head on your shoulders when you go court¬ 
ing. It is queer what fellows will say sometimes, when 
they go to ask for a girl. I heard of a fellow who went 



136 


MEETING JESUS 


to ask that very important question. It was a cool 
evening but the perspiration was rolling down his face. 

She said, “Why, Charlie, you look warm.” 

“Yes, I am very warm, Mary. How does your father 
stand the heat ? ’ ’ 

Wasn’t that a queer question to ask when the old man 
had been dead eight months. Then they locked arms 
and went out into the orchard and sat down on a rustic 
bench, side by side. The wind sighed and he sighed and 
the trees sighed. 

She said, “Charlie, just listen to that tree sighing.” 

He said, “Yes, and if you were as full of green apples 
as that tree you would sigh too.” 

Don’t join half a dozen clubs and get tied up with a 
gang who advocate an open town and are always adverse 
to real, vital religion. If you do, you stand against God, 
your good wife, and decency. If you belong to a gang 
like that you had better resign tonight or make a hole 
in the river and jump in. 

While you may study to know a little about most 
everything, know one little thing. Know it better than 
anyone else if you possibly can. This is a day of 
specialists. You may never find enjoyment in your em¬ 
ployment unless you follow the pursuit that you delight 
in. Bend your design where your genius doth incline. 
You will go to work with delight then; you will know 
you are on the right track by the way things run. 
There is a right place for everyone. I don’t mean by 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


137 


that that there will be no adverse winds. “Some ships 
drive east and some drive west by the selfsame wind 
they blow. It is the set of the sail and not the gale 
that determines the way they go.” You know how to do 
a thing better than anyone else and the job will be look¬ 
ing for you. Talent knows what to do; tact knows how 
to do it. There are many splendidly well educated 
men who are as ignorant of the world and its ways as 
the college student who, on receiving his first check for 
ten dollars, and was told by the cashier that he must 
endorse it, wrote on the back of it, “I heartily endorse 
this check.” 

If you make things go you must work, no matter 
what your vocation in life is. The greatest men of 
genius were the least believers in genius. Their success 
is due to the fact that they persevered; they everlasting¬ 
ly stuck to it; they would not give up. Read the lives 
of successful men; they will inspire you, and if you are 
compelled to wait, whistle while you wait. 

A boy when asked how he learned to skate, said, “By 
getting up every time I fell down.” A woman said to 
a little boy with a pair of new skates, who was crying 
from a fall he had, “My little man, I would give up if 
I were you. ’’ 

He said, “I didn’t get these new skates to give up 
with.” 

Don’t throw away your pole if fish don’t bite today. 



138 


MEETING JESUS 


They may bite tomorrow. No one can cheat you out of 
success but yourself. 

A man who undertook to be a blacksmith took a piece 
of iron and said, “I am going to make a horseshoe of 
this,” but he spoiled it. Then he said, “I will make a 
nail.” But he spoiled that. “Well,” he said, “I’ll 
make a steeple,” and he spoiled that. At last he said, 
“I know what I can do, I will put it in the water and 
make it fizz.” 

The proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New 
York City, used to be a waiter at twelve dollars a week. 
Look at Helen Keller, with all her diplomas and accom¬ 
plishments, blind eyes, mute tongue, deaf ears, and you 
will always be ashamed to complain, and it will help 
you get busy. Make stepping stones out of all your 
stumbling stones. If you strike a stump, don’t unhitch 
and go to the barn, but get a stick of dynamite and a 
crowbar, blow the thing up and plow on. Be like a 
fellow who has the itch. Make everybody scratch that 
gets close to you. A young fellow came from the city 
out on the farm. He insisted he could milk the cow, so 
they gave him a pail and stool. He came back, all over 
mud, and when asked what the trouble was said he could 
not get the blamed cow to sit on the stool. He certainly 
knew little about milking. I have read that Harper’s 
Ferry was painted fifty years ago, and that the paint is 
still good, they say. The world has been looking for the 
man who mixed the paint. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 


139 


The Big Four railroad paid a man ten thousand 
dollars a year to mix paint, and when he died they had 
to change color, for no man could mix it like that so it 
would stand. Don’t be afraid of the extra turn. You 
had better do something for nothing than nothing for 
something. 

Stick to things like glue. Remember, a plowhorse 
makes more miles in a year than the best thoroughbred 
on the race track. George Washington had grit. Study 
about him at Valley Forge, and his experience of cross¬ 
ing the Delaware. He had some experiences and hard¬ 
ships before his glory and honor of receiving the sword 
of Cornwallis at Yorktown. You study the characters 
most honored and loved and you will find that most of 
them came from obscurity. Look at Benjamin Franklin, 
walking the streets of Philadelphia, in poverty gnawing 
a crust of bread. Thomas Edison working in a telegraph 
office at sixty dollars a month. Abraham Lincoln in a 
log cabin, studying by the light of the fireplace. Friend, 
the elevator to success is not running; you must take 
the stairs if you will climb to success as others have be¬ 
fore you. Keep in mind you are not weighed by the 
noise you make; a frog makes more noise than a whale. 

I heard of a Shanghai rooster that every time he 
would crow he would throw his legs out of joint, and 
of a steamboat that when she blew her whistle she had 
to shut off her engine. Guard yourself from being on 
that line. 



140 


MEETING JESUS 


Thou hast delivered my soul. While the battle may 
be strong, in this life, for existence, the most important 
thing of all is the deliverance of the soul. It is so easy 
to do wrong, and an effort to do right; all the forces of 
hell seem to be arrayed against us. The devil will be 
glad if we give our time entirely to earthly pursuits 
and neglect to see to committing our soul into the hands 
of Him Who can deliver it. Nothing short of the power 
of God can deliver us. This is the most important battle, 
and we must have the victory here and now, or we have 
forever failed. 

An old painter took a young man out on the land¬ 
scape to paint a sunset on. a beautiful day. They were 
at the point early, and down the hillside was an old cabin. 
The young man thought he would try his hand at that 
while he was waiting for the sun to go down. The 
older man took a walk about the fields. When he re¬ 
turned the sun was sinking out of sight and he found 
the young man all absorbed in painting the shingles on 
the old roof. He looked over his shoulder and said, 
“ Sunset or shingles/* If you spend all your time on 
the shingles you will miss the glorious sunset. I urge 
upon you in this life, don’t become so occupied with 
lesser things that you miss the greater. 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


In the fifth chapter t of the Second Epistle to the Cor¬ 
inthians, at the 20th verse we read, ‘‘Now then we are 
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you 
by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled 
to God.” 

I was reading this text one day and saw that primarily 
this applied to the apostles, but when I began to investi¬ 
gate, I went back step by step in the context to see if 
there was more light that I could gain, and to see if I 
could find whether this was applicable or not to others. 

As I did, I discovered in the 18th verse, “and all 
things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself 
by Jesus Christ and hath given unto us the ministry 
of reconciliation.” I saw that the ministry of recon¬ 
ciliation had been delivered into our hands there. Then 
I saw that he was writing to the church at Corinth and 
to all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord. 
And he put himself in with those Christians to whom 
these were addressed. 

I went back to the 17th verse and discovered the thing 
that,makes us ambassadors. “If any man be in Christ, 
he is a new creature. Old things have passed away, 
behold all things are become new.” 

My brother, if you have passed through this 17th verse, 
then old things are passed away in your life and all 


142 


MEETING JESUS 


things are become new. If that is true, the text I am 
taking tonight is applicable to you, for we are ambassa¬ 
dors of Christ, standing in the same place where Christ 
would stand if He were here. The same ministry that 
Christ would have if here; speaking the same message He 
would speak if here; exhorting people to do the same 
thing He would exhort them to do if here. This is my 
position, the position that every man or woman who has 
been born again should take. 

Always Loved God 

Some people say to me, * 1 Mr. Crabill, I came to Christ 
when I was so young I do not remember the time when 
I first began to pray. I have always loved Jesus and 
God’s people.” If you have, I am glad for I think that 
is the ideal way. I am against the idea that we should 
let the Devil have our children until they are grown 
up and then attempt to wrest them from the Devil and 
turn them to Christ. 

It is the ideal way to come to Christ in youth, but 
listen, if you have actually taken Jesus Christ as your 
Saviour, you love Him above all things else and you 
put first things first, and Christ must have first place. 
In your position you are conscious of the fact that you 
are God’s child and commissioned as an ambassador of 
Christ to pray and beseech people to be reconciled to 
God. 

I heard a story about two little children who were 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


143 


playing at the head of a little stream. They played 
together awhile, then one stepped across the little brook, 
and they kept on talking and walking. Little springs 
seeped out of the earth into the stream and it gradually 
widened. They went along and had not noticed that it 
was getting so much larger until by and by it widened 
out into a great river and then the one wanted to cross 
on the other side. After a desperate struggle, it suc¬ 
ceeded in doing so, but said, “I certainly thought I 
would lose my life in crossing that stream. ’’ What was 
the difficulty? They both crossed it when it was only a 
little stream and it seemed but a step, the other later 
and it was a struggle. 

Is Only a Step 

It is only a step for a child to come to Jesus, but for a 
man or woman who has gone on in rebellion for years, 
it is a desperate struggle and so great that comparatively 
few people ever cross the stream. I think the ideal 
way is to come when a child; it is more than a step for 
you who are grown up. 

I heard Gypsy Smith say that when he was writing his 
autobiography he did not know how old he was. It is 
very embarrassing not to know how old you are when 
you want to write your biography. He went to his 
father and said, “ Father, I am writing the story of my 
life. I want you to tell me how old I am.” 



144 


MEETING JESUS 


His father looked for a little time and said, “You 
know you have been born, don’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, that is enough for any man.” 

I would say to you, it is not necessary that you know 
the time and place, where and when you took your stand 
for Christ, but I will say it is necessary for you to know. 
And if you have, “Then old things have passed away.” 

You are standing in that position now and, “We are 
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you 
by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead be ye reconciled 
to God.” It is just like this; as if when you accept 
Christ, God came down into this world and took you 
up and said, “You are now a citizen in Heaven, this 
is your home now, but I am going to send you down into 
the world as my ambassador, as my representative, to 
beseech people to become reconciled to God.” 

Citizenship in Heaven 

Look at Phil. 3:20. It says, “Our citizenship is in 
Heaven.” When an Englishman comes to this country, 
and decides he would like to stay and make this his 
home, he becomes naturalized and is an American citi¬ 
zen. When he does this he loses his citizenship in 
England. 

So when I become a citizen of Heaven, I am separated 
from this world and from sin. I am become a stranger 
here, a pilgrim, a sojourner. I may be in some business 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


145 


to keep down expenses while I am in this world. I may 
be in the store business, or manufacturing business, or 
I may be a teacher, or anything that is legitimate, but 
my main business here is to represent Christ and pray 
and beseech people to be reconciled to God. I challenge 
you or anyone in this city to take this old book and 
show me if the Christian’s business is anything else, from 
the moment he becomes a citizen of Heaven. 

When I began to study about ambassadors, I found 
that we never send an ambassador to our own country 
or to a country we are at war with. God is not at war 
with this world, for He has His ambassadors here. 
When war is declared, we call all our ambassadors home 
and the same thing holds true in God’s dealing with the 
world. When He declares judgment He will call His 
ambassadors home. 

I notice too, that the country to which the ambassador 
goes, judges the country from whence he came by the 
character of the ambassador himself. We sent an am¬ 
bassador to Austria some years ago. He was a lawyer 
from the State of Illinois. He probably drank while he 
lived in this country, but he drank heavily there and 
died abroad with delirium tremens. They say it is hard 
to this day to get the people of Austria to believe that 
the people of this country are anything else but drunk¬ 
ards, because our representative died of drink in that 
country. They judge the people of the United States 
by him. 



146 


MEETING JESUS 


Judged by Ambassador 

The people of this world are judging Christ and 
Heaven by the ambassadors here. If the only glimpse 
this world ever gets of Christ and Heaven is the vision 
it gets as it looks at you, what kind of a vision is it 
getting ? Have you taken your place and are you stand¬ 
ing for Christ, praying and beseeching people to be rec¬ 
onciled to God? 

In New York some years ago a young woman came to 
the pastor of the church of her choice and said, “I would 
like to join the church, but I am going on with the same 
people I have always traveled with. I am going to go 
to the same places, but I would like to be a member of 
the church.” 

The pastor smiled and said to her, “You cannot live 
for Christ and keep on with the old life and old com¬ 
panions.” 

“I am going to do personal work,” she said, “with 
the same people I have traveled with. ’ ’ They discussed 
the matter pro and con, but she was determined to go 
on in the same way. 

By and by one of those ten-cent dudes came around 
and asked her to go to a ball with him. She consented 
and went with him to the public ball. After they had 
danced a set or two they got off into a corner and were 
talking and she said to him, “Are you a Christian?” 

“Why, no, of course I am not!” 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


147 


‘‘You ought to be,'' she said. 

“Yes, of course, every man ought to be.” 

It seems strange to me that a man can say he ought 
to be a Christian and yet not have backbone enough to 
take his stand for Christ, and do it. The young man 
after a time asked her, ‘ ‘ Why did you ask that question a 
little while ago ? ’’ 

She answered, “Because I thought you ought to be a 
Christian.’ ’ 

Then he looked at her a few minutes and said, “Are 
you a Christian?” 

“Yes.” 

“What are you doing here, then?” he asked. That 
poor, ten-cent dude knew it was no place for a Christian. 
That is not my decision, but the decision of the world. 

Beware of Places 

Beware of going to places and doing things where the 
world will say, “What are you doing here?” I believe 
some of you will not like that. I should not wonder if 
you did not, but I never found a class of people who 
believed in doing those things that were vitally inter¬ 
ested in souls. 

Suppose the United States wanted me to go to China 
as an ambassador. She never will, so you need not get 
nervous, and I won’t. I would not accept the position 
if they did offer it to me, for I would rather be an 
ambassador of Christ than President of the United 



148 


MEETING JESUS 


States. But suppose they should call me to go as their 
ambassador to the Hawaiian Islands and at Honolulu I 
would settle down in my easy chair and light my pipe 
and say if these Chinese want to do business with me 
they can come over here. How long would the United 
States support me there? You know I would not draw 
my first pay. If God has saved me out of this world 
and commissioned me to go back to the world to be His 
ambassador, and if I do not do it, I will never,draw my 
first pay. That is the way it appears to me. 

I heard of a fellow who was going to a theological 
seminary studying to become a preacher. He said to 
his old professor one evening, “I believe I will go over 
and hear the evangelist tonight. They say he is having 
great meetings.” 

The old professor said ,“I would too, if I were you. 
You might get some good points that will be helpful to 
you in your ministry/ ’ 

The young fellow went over and took a back seat and 
folded his arms and sat there. He did not enter into 
the song service; he didn’t even get up and stand with 
the Christians. He did not believe in voting; some 
people don’t; they won’t stand up and vote for Christ; 
they prefer to sit still and vote for the Devil. 

Climb Over the Seats 

When the service was ended he returned home. The 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


149 


next day the old professor asked him how he liked the 
evangelist, and he said he didn’t like him very well. 

“What did he preach about?” 

“I don’t know what he did preach about.” 

“What was his text?” 

“I don’t know whether he took one or not.” 

“What did he say?” 

“I don’t know. He just ran across the platform from 
one end to the other, saying, “Come to Jesus, come to 
Jesus.” 

“Did anybody come?” 

“Yes, that was the mystery of the whole thing. 
They just climbed over the seats and flocked down the 
aisle to get to Jesus.” 

“Well,” said the old professor, “you go up and learn 
how to say ‘ Come to Jesus ’ so that people will come and 
you have learned all the secret you need to know.” 

I believe each and every one of us can learn how to 
say “Come to Jesus” in such a way that our words will 
have power in them. 

In New York City some years ago the Salvation Army 
was holding a meeting on a street corner. A bunch of 
street walkers came along and they stopped and listened 
to one of the lassies as she was telling the story of child¬ 
hood, home and mother. 

One of those girls who was listening stayed behind, 
and when they invited the people to go to their hall she 
followed the drum beat. When the invitation was given 



150 


MEETING JESUS 


she went down to the front and gave herself to Jesus. 
They took her into their home and presented her with a 
Bible. They do something in the Salvation Army I wish 
all churches would do. They put everybody to work and 
make them preach. If the churches would begin to do 
that now, some people would ask that their names be 
erased from the church roll. But I believe we would 
have greater power if we could get rid of some of the 
dead wood. 

Too Many Highbrows 

We have too many highbrows in the church who are 
determined to rule or ruin. They are a hindrance and 
not a help. 

That Salvation Army captain announced that this girl 
who had just been converted would speak at the meeting 
next night. When her companions heard that she was 
going to preach, they came, sixteen of them, to scoff 
and make fun. 

She sat there on the platform with a Bible in her hand, 
with her finger on a verse she was going to try to speak 
from. Her heart was bubbling over with love for God 
and for the lost in the world. 

When she told how she had been converted, the girls 
sat giggling, but she looked back at them with the tears 
streaming down her cheeks and said, “ Jesus, Jesus, 
Jesus.’’ It was all she could say and she sat down and 
wept. That Salvation Army Captain jumped up and at 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


151 


once gave the invitation for any lost or troubled soul 
to come to this Jesus. There wasn’t much logic about 
that young girl’s sermon. Just Jesus, Jesus, Jesus; but 
twelve of those light, frivolous, giggling girls came down 
the aisle that night and gave themselves to God. There 
was not much logic, but there was power. 

Sometimes the message may not seem to be a message 
of love. It may have rough corners on it. Some of us 
preachers because we know humanity so well, or think 
we do, will try to get our hammer out and smooth off 
the rough corners. Sometimes when we give out the 
Bread of Life, we spoil it with the butter we put on 
it. We should give out the unadulterated message of 
God. 

Explain Away Hell 

Some people try to explain away Hell; some people 
will not speak of it except by the word Hades; some 
never speak of the Devil nor of the Day of Judgment. 
I am not responsible for the message but I am responsible 
for the way I give it out. 

We sent an ambassador to Spain some years ago, 
named Woodford. By and by, Uncle Sam sent a mes¬ 
sage to this ambassador to deliver to Spain. It said, 
You draw off your dogs of war from that little island 
of Cuba and give her liberty. If you don’t we will cut 
every Spanish flagpole from that island. 

Mr. Woodford might have said, “That has rough cor- 



152 


MEETING JESUS 


ners on it. These black Spaniard eyes will snap fire 
and if I get them angry I will get into trouble. I guess 
I will say nothing about this message and just buy a 
ticket for the bull fight this afternoon and go out and 
enjoy myself with them.” 

That is just about the way we are doing. We buy a 
ticket to the play house and sport with the people bound 
to sin and on the way to Hell. We go to church on 
Sunday, sometimes, but I declare to you, if a man were 
to meet us on the train or at the show, he would not 
know whether we were a deacon in the church or a 
saloon keeper. We act as if we were ashamed to pray 
and beseech people to be reconciled to God. 

I tell you God is doing splendid work with the ma¬ 
terial He has to work with and the position we take. 
I am glad Mr. Woodford did not say that and if he had 
we would have been ashamed of him. He stood up in 
the Spanish court and delivered the message just as it 
was given to him and he was handed his passport and 
came home, whistling Yankee Doodle all the way. He 
was proud because he was the representative of the great¬ 
est country in the world. 

Rough Corners 

I am not responsible for God’s Word, but I am re¬ 
sponsible for the way I give it out. If it has rough 
corners' I will never tone it down, but I do not want to 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


153 


unnecessarily thrust thorns into anyone’s side. It is 
God’s truth, it is not mine. 

I expect to be true to God’s Word and God’s truth 
as it is, whether people will hear it or whether they will 
reject it. 

Yes, we are called to be ambassadors for Him and pray 
and beseech people to be reconciled to God. What must 
God think of us the way we are doing it today ? 

What kind of a representative have you been today 
in your place of business and in your home? Have you 
lived today as Christ would have lived if He had been 
there? Have you met your associates as Christ would 
have met them if He had been here? Has your conver¬ 
sation been such as becometh a live ambassador for 
Christ ? 

Paul said, “For me to live is Christ.” If that old 
text I am taking tonight is true I am standing in Christ’s 
stead and if I am not living the Christ life, I am a poor 
representative. I am neglecting the work He has left 
me to do and I shall be ashamed when I meet Him face 
to face. 

Dr. Len Broughton of Atlanta, Ga., now of London, 
used to go out and hold evangelistic meetings in the 
early days of his ministry. He had gone one time into 
an aristocratic church of the South. The pastor was a 
friend of Mr. Broughton and had to be away for a time 
at the beginning of the meetings. He said to his friend, 
“My men will stand by you; do just as you like.” He 



154 


MEETING JESUS 


went on and preached for a week and the church was 
filled with people, for Len Broughton, the great preacher, 
was there. 

He said that every night the words seemed to get cross¬ 
wise in his mouth. They seemed to hit against the back 
wall and bound back into his face and he had a very 
hard time preaching. When Sunday night came, he 
knew the, people were expecting him to give an invita¬ 
tion, but he didn’t feel at all led to do so. He asked at 
the close of the service if there was anybody there who 
would like to be remembered in prayer. He saw no one 
for a time, but finally a small boy held up his hand. He 
asked the Christians to stand on their feet and said, “Is 
there anyone here who wants to confess Christ? If so, 
I want you to come and give me your hand.” 

He looked around over the audience and the boy, with 
a silly grin on his face, came down the aisle and gave him 
his hand. The next night the same boy was there. Mr. 
Broughton had just as hard a time to preach as before 
and when the invitation was extended, the same boy 
stood up to be prayed for and came down the aisle at 
the invitation. 

When he came there was quite a giggling in the au¬ 
dience and at the close of the meeting, after Mr. Brough¬ 
ton had prayed with the boy and had given him some 
words of counsel, the officials said, “We shall have to 
do something with that boy.” 

“Why?” 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


155 


“Because he will kill these meetings if we don’t.” 

Mr. Broughton said, “You cannot kill something that 
is already dead.” 

“But he is a foolish boy. Didn’t you see how the 
people giggled?” 

“Yes, but I thought the boy acted as if he had more 
sense than the people who giggled at him.” 

The next night the boy came back with an old, white 
haired man and when Mr. Broughton was finished 
preaching the boy got hold of the old man’s hand and 
said, “Grandpa, come on and give the preacher man 
your hand.” 

The old man hesitated for a time and then came down 
the aisle with the boy and gave his hand to the preacher. 
Mr. Broughton said that at the close of the service the 
same officers crowded round him and said, “That is the 
most influential man in this community. We have been 
trying to reach him for years.” He was that boy’s 
grandfather, and the boy was the only child of his only 
son. 

That boy’s father ran one of those fashionable saloons 
like Bishop Potter dedicated with prayer. The next day 
the boy went down to the saloon and climbed up to the 
bar and said to his father, “Papa, you must go with me 
and hear the preacher man tonight.” 

His father didn’t want him there and probably in 
order to get rid of him he said, “Well, you run on home 
and I will go with you tonight.” He thought the boy 



156 


MEETING JESUS 


would forget it, but at supper time he reminded his 
father of his promise to go with him and hear the 
preacher man. 

No doubt the mother helped it along a little and said, 
“Go with him, it won’t hurt you, and Len Broughton 
is a great man and you will enjoy him.” 

This boy was the only child and a foolish child and 
they had always humored him and given him anything 
he wanted, so he went. 

Mr. Broughton preached that night as only Len 
Broughton can preach, and when he had finished and 
given the invitation, the boy said, 11 Come on, papa, and 
give the preacher man your hand.” 

He kept at him for a little while; then, in the midst 
of a great solemnity, that man went down the aisle and 
gave the preacher his hand. He said, “I would like to 
say a word if I may. You people know who I am. I 
am going to promise God, and I promise you tonight, 
that I will never sell another drop of liquor as long as 
I live.” 

He went home to close up his saloon and a revival 
started then and there that closed every saloon for ten 
miles around, and hundreds of souls were born into the 
kingdom. 

That revival started when God found a simple boy 
who was willing to be His ambassador. When I heard 
that I thought, what could God do with me if I would 
put myself at His disposal? 



AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 


157 


What could He do with the people in this place to¬ 
night if they would get down to business and do God’s 
will? 

I will tell you what He would do. He would send to 
this city what is needed more than anything else, a genu¬ 
ine work of grace that would get men saved by the 
hundreds. One of the most abominable things of these 
closing days is joining the church without joining Christ 
and having the form of religion without having the 
reality. 

I believe that if the people that profess to follow God 
would take that position and give God their hearts and 
would pray and beseech people to be reconciled to God, 
we would see the greatest revival ever known. Not be¬ 
cause I am here, but because God would have the right 
of way. When you become instruments in His hands 
and God has right of way, this community or any other 
community can have a revival that will be genuine and 
lasting. 

When I look at my watch and the hands indicate the 
time of night I know it ought to be, I conclude from 
the hands that the works are all right. Just so I look 
at the hands and works of this community or any other 
community and see they are not pointing right and ac¬ 
complishing the work God meant them to do, I know 
there is something wrong inside. 

Beloved, when the heart is right, the outer life is right 
and the works will indicate it. When we realize that 



158 


MEETING JESUS 


God has committed the ministry of reconciliation into 
our hands, we ought to fairly tremble, feeling our re¬ 
sponsibility. Oh, that we may feel it and realize it 
enough to be true ambassadors for Christ, is my prayer. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 


I am not going to speak directly tonight to unsaved 
people. If I were going to speak to unsaved people I 
would preach “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” I be¬ 
lieve that to be the first question for unsaved people to 
decide, and when they have decided what they will do 
with Jesus, that decides many other questions for them, 
and then they are in a position to decide other questions 
of less importance. I am going to speak to the class of 
people who once were saved out of the world and have 
gone back into it, and to that class that have joined 
the visible church and have never been saved out of the 
world. 

I have been studying the amusement problem in my 
work for quite a time and have come to the conclusion 
that questionable amusements are the cancer that is eat¬ 
ing at the very heart of church life. I have also discov¬ 
ered by a study of my Bible that the prominent sin in 
the close of this age is “the love of the world/’ Each 
age has had its prominent sin. The prophetic sin of the 
church in the closing days of this age is the love of 
pleasure. 

I have never boasted of being much of a sermonizer. 
I have not been able always to get my firstly and secondly 
and thirdly just as others, but somehow this message 
falls naturally into a firstly, a secondly and a thirdly. 


160 


MEETING JESUS 


My firstly will be theater-going. My secondly will be 
card playing. My thirdly will be dancing. You can 
remember my outline, I am sure, without my going over 
it again. I have been gathering material for this lecture 
for some time, and much that I will give you tonight 
you will find on record. 

Spiritual Proof 

A minister said to me when I first began to preach, 
“My boy, always get a good foundation when you at¬ 
tempt to preach, and then, if you run short of material, 
you have a foundation to build in different places. ’ 9 So, 
if I am going to speak upon this much-debated question 
I should have a good scriptural foundation. I beg of 
you to listen to the version of Scripture foundation I 
am to take. We will start with 1 John 2:15-17, “Love 
not the world, neither the things that are in the world. 
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not 
in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh 
and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not the 
Father’s, but is of the world. The world passeth away 
and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God 
abideth forever.” That is a pretty strong text to start 
with, but suppose we turn back a little to James 5:4, “ Ye 
adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that the friend¬ 
ship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, 
therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of 
God.” Please note what friendship with the world is 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 161 


—enmity with God. Turn back to Titus 1:16, “They 
profess that they know God; but in works they deny 
Him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every 
good work reprobate .’’ So there are those who profess 
to know God, but by their work deny Him. Turn back 
to 2 Timothy 5:10, “Demas hath forsaken me, having 
loved this present world.” There are many Demases 
today who have forsaken the teaching of Paul because 
of the love of the world.. Look at 2 Timothy 3:4-5, 
“Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having 
a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” 
The Second Epistles always go to the closing days. This 
is an apostate condition. Apostates depart from the 
faith but not from the form. Can you not see that this 
is a condition that we have today? It is popular to be¬ 
long to a church today; to have a form of godliness, but 
not to be zealously affected in the work for God. Be¬ 
longing to a church and living in the world is certainly 
the condition of many at present. Many churches are 
made into playhouses and given up largely to entertain¬ 
ment because of this. Turn back again to 1 Thessa- 
lonians 5:22, “Abstain from all appearances of evil.” 
I wonder if this is not some of the teaching you have 
forsaken? According to this I am to give up anything 
that has even the appearance about it. Turn back again 
'to Colossians 3:17, “And whatsoever you do is in word 
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving 
thanks to God and the Father by Him.” Do you go to 



162 


MEETING JESUS 


the theater ? Do you play cards ? Do you dance in the 
name of Jesus? Do you pray over these things at the 
opera house? Do you bow your head at the card table 
and thank God for the game? Do you open and close 
your dance with prayer or have your leader do so? 
Turn back again to 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether 
therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to 
the glory of God.” Do you do it? 1 Corinthians 8: 
12-13, “But when ye sin so against the brethren and 
wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. 
Wherefore if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat 
no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother 
to offend.” Paul’s standard for the settlement of ques¬ 
tionable things here is very strong. He could eat meat 
without injury to himself, but for the sake of his in¬ 
fluence and the injury done to his brother, which sin 
he says would be against Christ, he abstains from it for¬ 
ever. How about the standard for the things I am to 
talk about tonight? Some of us have been wounded 
severely because of your engagements at these places. 
If you are doing the right thing from the Scriptural 
standpoint then you are forced to cut them off for our 
sake, for if you continue, you do not only wound us, but 
you sin against Christ. Turn back just once more to 
Matthew 7:20, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know 
them.” You can always judge a tree by the kind of 
fruit it bears. I have yet to find the first theater-going, 
card-playing, dancing church member who was a soul- 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 163 


winner or that was truly interested in the soul-saving 
business. I have found them teaching Sunday school 
classes, but in my judgment they were doing more harm 
than good. “Wherefore come out from among them, 
and be ye separate saith the Lord, and touch not the 
unclean things; and I will receive you, and will be a 
father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, 
saith the Lord Almighty .’’ 2 Corinthians 6:17-18. 
Perhaps this is enough foundation. If it is not, I will 
give you some more, for the Bible is full of it. 

Theaters 

The first accusation that I bring against the playhouse 
is that it is run for money alone, and money is a cold, 
cruel thing. I know it has boasted of being an educa¬ 
tional institution, but it is too impure to be educational, 
except as it educates in devilishness. 

The class of plays that will draw the largest attend¬ 
ance are put on the stage. The masses of people are not 
the spiritual-minded people and, therefore, to attract 
the largest numbers they must put on plays that will 
interest the largest class. 

Booth and Irwin tried to elevate the stage by putting 
on a better class of plays. They built a beautiful play¬ 
house for this purpose, but it failed and was sold for 
five cents on the dollar. 

I am aware of the fact that they have staged religious 
scenes and there are what they call good moral plays, 




164 


MEETING JESUS 


but there is always enough of the suggestion of the im¬ 
moral sandwiched in between the acts to satisfy the de¬ 
sires of that voluptuous fellow who has paid his money 
and would not come again if they did not give him a little 
carrion to feed on. 

Out of sixty plays that'were investigated by competent 
parties in a certain playhouse, ten were found to be 
moral or religious plays, and these were just bait to 
draw the church people in and get their endorsement. 
Each of these had enough of the immoral suggestion to 
spoil it from being entirely educational in good things. 

The second accusation that I bring against the play¬ 
house is that it is unspiritual. Out of the hundreds of 
carefully trained actors and actresses who act their lines 
as if they were true, and move the emotion of people 
until they weep and weep again, 'no lasting good is ex¬ 
pected. 

There will not be a single soul converted in all the 
playhouses tonight, none will be made more Christlike 
or more zealous for souls, but the opposite is true, and 
that with all the religious plays that are being staged. 

Now, if the Spirit of God was working with this thing 
there would be a convert once in a while, but there will 
not be one from it this season. Most any clean Christian 
is able to get a convert once in a while, and many preach¬ 
ers will have converts tonight, but I know of none on 
record being converted at the playhouse watching the 
play. Therefore, I contend that if God was with them, 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WOKMS 165 


these religious plays, with their carefully trained actors 
and actresses would be blessed with the salvation of a 
soul once in a while. It is quite evident that it is not of 
God, for His approval is not upon, it in blessing. 

An actor challenged that statement at the close of 
my lecture one night and said he knew of people who 
had been converted by his acting. When I began to 
investigate and asked him for the convert’s name that 
I might write to the convert and get it first-handed, his 
face became red and he would not produce the name, 
and I am still making this assertion. I found out that 
he was a Christian Scientist, and if he had a convert it 
was to Mrs. Eddy and not to Jesus Christ. There are 
no converts from all these religious plays and the con¬ 
clusion must be that God is not in it or with it. 

The third accusation I bring against the playhouse is 
that it degrades the women that play before the foot¬ 
lights. A well known actress said it was the task of a 
giant to keep pure on the stage. One who has been there 
for years and played with the brightest lights said he 
did not know a pure woman on the stage. That seemed 
like putting it a little strong to me. 

The celebrated actor, McCready, would not let his 
daughters go to the playhouse. 

Mary Anderson, who was queen upon the stage in her 
day, but afterwards married and settled down in Eng¬ 
land, said she hoped that her daughters would never 
enter a playhouse. 



166 


MEETING JESUS 


Would Jesus Christ, if He were here in the body as 
I am in the body, take His money and help support and 
encourage an institution that degrades the morals of 
women? If He would not do it, then I cannot do it 
and please Him. 

You say, “I work for my money. I can spend it as 
I like.” But let me ask you who gave you the health 
and the strength and the ability to earn that money? 
You owe it all to God. You are only a steward of that 
money, and some day we must all render an account 
for the way we have used it. If I have used it to en¬ 
courage an institution that has degraded and damned 
souls, I shall be awfully ashamed on that day. 

The fourth accusation that I bring against the play¬ 
house is that the play fills the mind with things that 
seem to make it impossible to study the Bible and to 
spend time in prayer. It creates and fosters a spirit of 
romance which brings dissatisfaction and discontent to 
the young. It tends to frivolity and to dress in fashions 
that are not becoming to Christians. God-consciousness 
will make you and me, and it will make everyone mis¬ 
erable and unhappy at the playhouse, and we cannot go 
to His glory or glorify Him there. We cannot pray 
there, we cannot speak to a man about his soul there, 
or speak to him the next day about his soul when we sat 
by him the night before at the playhouse. If this is 
true, and it is, then there remains but one thing to do 
to be honest with God and our fellow men, and that is 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 167 


to abstain from all appearances of evil. This can only 
be done by going no more. 

Actors and actresses walk yonr streets with a worldly 
air and set a pace for worldliness that is picked np 
quickly and imitated by your young people, and this 
helps to lead them away from Christ and right. 

I cannot conscientiously give my influence and my 
money to these things, for I feel they are against the 
spiritual welfare of the people. Fifty per cent of the 
jokes of the stage are against Christianity. If I go, I 
lend my influence to that which is against God and 
against the eternal welfare of souls. 

God help us who are Christians to transmute our 
money into souls that will shine with Him in eternity 
and not use it to degrade and turn people away from 
Heaven. 


Secondly, Card Playing 

You can go out between acts if you like. I want to 
say good-bye to some of you right here, for I do not 
expect to see you again after tonight. All soul-winners 
hate cards as they hate a rattlesnake. I mean the kind 
that have the stamp of the gambler’s finger upon them. 
You say, what is the difference between cards and 
checkers, authors, etc. ? Just as much difference as there 
is between Heaven and Hell. It is said that more than 
eighty million dollars changes hands every day in this 
country alone through gambling, and cards are the chief 



168 


MEETING JESUS 


instrument used in the transfer. Cards were invented 
to satisfy the craving desire of an idiotic king. They 
have ruined millions of ; people. It is hard to tell which 
is the most damnable, the drink habit or the gambling 
habit. No person ever noted for card playing or dancing 
was ever noted for religious devotion. Do you believe 
that gambling is wrong? Yes, you say. Then do you 
not believe the making of gamblers is wrong? Someone 
must volunteer to make them. The gambler has no time 
to do it. And anyone with any sense at all would not 
go to a gambling den to learn to play cards. He would 
soon be fleeced out of everything he had. He must learn 
some other place. Who will volunteer to teach this 
boy? Here she comes, a mother with a squeaky voice; 
she talks like a morphine eater. “Well, Mr. Crabill, I 
play cards with my boy so he won’t go down town and 
learn to play with the boys.” You do. I suppose you 
swear with him in your home so he won’t learn to swear 
on the street, don’t you? You drink with him so he 
won’t go down town to the saloon and learn to drink 
there. You could say that with just as much sense as 
you could say the other. On that principle you would 
send your daughter down into the red light district and 
bring her up in a house of ill fame so she won’t be a 
prostitute when she grows up. 

It is said by people who have looked into the matter 
that nine-tenths of the professional gamblers learned to 
play cards in their own homes. Eighty per cent of 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 169 


these in so-called Christian homes. The best place in 
the world to bring up infidels is in inconsistent Christian 
homes. I don’t know how true it is, but I have been 
told that Robert Ingersoll’s father was a clergyman in¬ 
consistent in his home. 

The Social Card Club 

Gambling dens are not so dangerous as the social card 
clubs. The old greasy table and a dirty deck of cards 
are not so attractive to your boy as the palatial home 
with some nice girls and a silk deck of cards. There is 
where many a man was prepared for the gambling den 
and rum. In Kentucky a child, while playing, climbed 
into an old hollow stump. In a little while it began 
to scream. There were rattlesnakes in the stump and it 
was bitten by the poisonous reptiles. Friends, the father 
did not build a nice fence about the stump and plant 
flowers there, but he filled it with straw, poured on kero¬ 
sene and set fire to it, burning up stump, snakes and 
all, and I think that is the way you ought to do with 
your cards, for they have been poisonous to many, and 
because of this they are questionable, and we cannot 
play them to the glory of God. When one of our United 
States senators received a copy of Robert Ingersoll’s 
books on infidelity with the author’s compliments, when 
he saw what it was he held it at a distance, carried it to 
the fire, put it in, and went and washed his hands. For 
the sake of your children and those you influence, I beg 



170 


MEETING JESUS 


of you go home tonight, burn your deck of cards and 
wash your hands of the card business once and for all. 
But, you say, that yould make it embarrassing for me 
in the society of our town. No doubt it will, and it may 
be the means of your getting kicked out of the society 
of your town and losing some of your so-called friends, 
who were not friends of Jesus, but friends of the world, 
and, therefore, “enemies of God.” That will be your 
cross. If you can find a way to follow Jesus in this time 
without a cross you can find a way that I know not of 
or can find Scripture to justify. No man can serve two 
masters. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Matt. 
6:24. If you are serving the world you cannot serve 
Christ. It means the giving up of one or the other. 
Which shall it be? 


Thirdly, Dancing 

This gets worse, friends, as it goes on, so if you want 
to you had better go now, for this is your last chance. 
There is not a denomination but what has cried out 
against the modern dance at some time. Even the old 
Roman church has condemned it. When a certain priest 
was asked why he condemned the modern dance above 
the saloon he said that through the confessional he had 
found that more of their people went astray through the 
dance than through the saloon. Bishop Cox, of the 
Episcopal Church of Western New York, when sent for 
to lay his hands on a class at a certain place and confirm 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 171 


them in their faith, sent this message: “I refuse to lay 
my hands on this class of young people, unless they will 
renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil,’’ and the 
only thing he mentioned outside of these or inside of 
these was the modern dance. Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, 
Dr. W. D. Biederwolf, two leading evangelists of the 
Presbyterian church, are strong preachers against the 
dance. The Methodist Episcopal church (and the great¬ 
est mistake that the Episcopal church ever made was 
the refusal to mother that movement), has inserted in 
her creed statements that will make the ordinary member 
flinch today if they have any conscience. Every one of 
them that are doing the things that I am preaching 
about tonight are living in an open life, every time they 
do it, for they have sworn before God and the church 
not to do these but to live a different life, separate life, 
separate from the world. The first Baptist preacher 
lost his head through the dance. Every true preacher 
in the Baptist church has cried out against the dance 
ever since. Every spiritual minister in any denomina¬ 
tion of any note has preached against this sin. Cer¬ 
tainly there must be some reason for this cry. You 
never found a soul-winner at the head of a dance. How 
would you like to have in your obituary notes or on 
your tombstone, “She will be missed very much for she 
was a splendid dancer.” If not all right at death, is 
it all right in iife, if you would live for Christ? Of 
course, if you are not going to live for Christ, it is not 



172 


MEETING JESUS 


expected that you will turn from these things, and I 
would say if I were you, and had made up my mind 
that I was not going to live for Christ, I think I would 
make the best of the world’s pleasures for this short 
inch of time, knowing that it would be the end of all 
pleasure when this short life is past. 

The modern dance is worldly in its origin, in its in¬ 
fluence, in its tendency and in its results. May I remind 
you of some of our foundation structure. “Love not 
the world.” “If any man love the world the love of 
the Father is not in him.” Is it not worldly? Cer¬ 
tainly it is not spiritual, is it? “Whosoever will be a 
friend of the world is the enemy of God. ’ ’ But you say, 
* Mr. Crabill, is there not a difference between the public 
dance and the nice little parlor dance with the selected 
few?’ Yes, I think there is, just the difference there is 
between a big rattlesnake and a little one. I remember 
a few years ago when an editor of one of the secular 
papers in Syracuse, N. Y., made a fight against the 
dance, denouncing it as a damnable institution and ad¬ 
vising parents through, its columns to keep their daugh¬ 
ters away from dance halls. Friends, I think it is time 
for the church to cry out against these things when a 
worldly editor arises and begins to give such advice. 

According to statistics gathered by the Salvation 
Army and the W. C. T. U. out of the five hundred thou¬ 
sand fallen women in this country, three hundred sev¬ 
enty-five thousand began their fallen career at the dance; 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 173 


eighty per cent, of all the girls in houses of refuge 
started their life of disgrace at the dance. According 
to statistics of the chief of police of New York City a 
few years ago nine-tenths of the fallen women in houses 
of ill fame there started at the dance. It takes cheek 
to stand up and argue for an institution like that. Don’t 
you think so ? Where did these girls come from ? This 
great mass of prostitutes are supplied by country towns 
largely and there is an increased demand continually, 
for the average life of these poor, unfortunate women is 
only seven years! The devil keeps the dance running 
hard all the time, for he could hardly meet the demand 
without this institution. He has many hook-nosed danc¬ 
ing teachers who are paid a bonus for every girl they 
lead astray and bring into the red light district. Many 
back-slidden church members are working hard to help 
him with these things, not knowing just what they are 
doing, for the devil is a deceiver and keeps eyes blinded 
to the real fact and outcome. Many a girl who started 
at a party or parlor dance who came out of a good family, 
a Sunday school scholar or a Sunday school teacher, 
heated and excited over the dance, did that that she knew 
would bring disgrace to herself and friends and rather 
than meet the disgrace she ran away from home. She 
found in her dancing teacher one ready to suggest and 
to assist in what to do under the circumstances. That 
is the way she went, that is the way you may go if you 
continue to go your own way and turn your back upon 



174 


MEETING JESUS 


the tender pleadings of the Son of God. If you young 
women could hear the conversation of the young men 
as they talk together after the dance and the remarks 
they make about you, I believe you would never dance 
again. 

They call them dress balls, undressed would be a better 
name for them. The more fashionable they are the less 
clothes they wear. No moral man can go on the dance 
floor and dance with a woman dressed as fashion arrays 
her and keep his thoughts pure; one would have to have 
the constitution of an Esquimau to keep from catching 
cold looking at them. I like to see women dressed up— 
all the way up. I never could understand why a mar¬ 
ried woman wanted to dance unless it is because she 
wanted to be hugged by another man other than her 
husband. The pastor told me afterwards that she was 
one of that kind. (You may go any time you want to.) 
You say it is awful to talk like that. Friends, if it is 
awful to talk about it, what must it be to do it? A 
woman in a certain place listened to what I am saying 
now and said afterwards she would have sooner given 
a hundred dollars than to have heard it, and the old 
reprobate was doing the very things I was preaching 
against, and she thought it was worse to talk about it 
than it was to do it. 

They say they dance to be> graceful. The most grace¬ 
ful thing I ever saw was a tomcat, and he never danced 
in his life. So it is not necessary to dance to be graceful. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 175 


The Christian life is a walk, not a jump, but a walk 
separated from the world, and I am sure that if men 
danced separate and women danced separate, the dance 
wouldn’t last long. The position you take on the floor 
is immoral, and, if you claim to be decent, you would 
not permit such liberties in your own parlor, and music 
and motion can never make immorality morality. You 
have the same passions within you that the fallen woman 
has and they only need to be fed and encouraged to lead 
you into the same direction into which she has gone. 

The dance originated in a Paris brothel and is simply 
a sexual love feast set to music. A very eminent 
preacher has said that passion is the foundation center 
of the dance, and I think I can prove this statement. 
Men gamble without the women, they drink without the 
women, they bet on the races alone, but they never dance 
without women, and the dance will stop when the women 
of the country prize their virtue enough not to put them¬ 
selves in the way of ruination or separate the sexes in 
the dance. I don’t say that every woman who dances 
loses her virtue or becomes impure, but I do say that 
many who dance become impure, and I believe the ma¬ 
jority who continue at the dance lose their modesty and 
become impure sooner or later. A mother says she can 
not see any harm in her daughter dancing, but she may 
when it is too late. It is too late to lock the barn door 
after the horse is stolen. The mother that can’t see any 
harm in her daughter being held in fond embrace as she 



176 


MEETING JESUS 


is whirled about the dance hall by a man whose character 
is so black and rotten that it casts a moral stench in the 
community, and who has the reputation for leading 
astray nearly every girl he goes with, is blind and cannot 
see afar off. 

When a woman went to the prison house to talk to a 
convict, he asked her these questions: Do you go to the 
theaters? Do you play cards? Do you dance? She 
answered to them all that she did not. Then he said, 
“Go on. I feel that these things had something to do 
with my drift downward, that eventually has landed 
me here. ’’ The love for the dance has kept many people 
out of useful life for Christ and has damned many souls. 
It does not assist a young man in getting a good position 
to say he is fond of the theater, card table or dance. 
For these prove to be a financial drain upon any young 
man and often lead to dishonesty. In order to keep up 
and show the girls a good time he must have more money 
than he is really earning, and the temptation comes to 
take from the employer, and this has led him to be a 
thief. The girl who cares for a young man, and has any 
sense does not want him to spend his money lavishly on 
her like that, and the young man that is keeping com¬ 
pany with a young woman in earnest is the first one to 
object to the dance. I used to dance myself, but when 
I wanted a wife, I chose a girl who never danced. If 
you will dance, go on; take your dude or your dudeen 
and dance and go on your way to hell, but I beg of you to 



ECCLESIASTICAL HOOK-WORMS 177 


be honest and go to your pastor and tell him you love 
the world and its pleasures more than you do Christ, and 
you want to have your name taken off the roll, and be 
divorced from the church so you can dance with the 
devil and not feel you are a hypocrite. It might be 
more sensible to give up the dance and get into the 
church and go to work, and I hope you may see it this 
way. 

We have in this Christian land (?) a school dance. 
When our children graduate from our schools they must 
join in a big dance. That is because of our ungodly 
school boards and teachers. When I said that in a cer¬ 
tain town in New York State the professor of the school, 
a godly man, came to me at the close and said, “Mr. 
Crabill, that is not true here. When our first class 
graduated, and they wanted a dance, I told them, 'You 
can have a dance if you will, but you can’t have it under 
the auspices of the school.’ ” And, friends, I want to 
tell you that that professor under God’s guidance helped 
me win nearly every young person to Christ in that 
town, and he has been teaching them in a large Bible 
class ever since. I thank God from the very bottom of 
my heart for that kind of a professor. Once more, and 
I am through, and I will ask you for your decision then. 
Did you ever know anyone that had so much of the re¬ 
ligion of Jesus Christ that would not attend theaters? 
Yes, there are some, you say. Did you ever know of 
any that got so low down in sin that they would not go ? 



178 


MEETING JESUS 


No, none get too low to go to theaters. Then there must 
be a dividing line between the two. You are on one side 
of it or the other. Which side are you on? 

Did you ever find one with so much of the religion of 
the Lord Jesus that they would not play cards? Yes. 
Did you ever find one that got so low down that they 
would not play ? No. You find cards in the lowest dens 
of vice. Then there must be a dividing line somewhere. 
You are on one side or the other. 

Did you ever know anyone so Christlike that they 
would not dance any more, sporting with the enemies of 
our Lord? Yes. Did you ever know anyone that ever 
got too low down to dance? No. In the slums of the 
cities they still dance, but do not go to church or serve 
God. Then there must be a dividing line somewhere, 
and you are on the side with the ungodly, or you are on 
the side with the real Christians. Which side are you 
on? If you do not see any harm in these things, are 
not ashamed to be on that side, stand up that we may 
see you. If you do see harm in them, and are honest, 
you will never do it again. May God help you to be 
true. 



BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


God is the Lord, which hath showed us light; bind 
the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. 
Ps. 118:27.. 

If we have any light it has come from God and any 
light we may get from God’s Word comes as it is re¬ 
vealed to us through the Spirit of God. We may get the 
letter of the word, but the revealed message is given 
only to those who are spirit taught. 

The altar was the meeting place of the sinner and God. 
We have a description of it in Exodus 27:12, “And thou 
shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, 
and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare; and 
the height thereof shall be three cubits. And thou shalt 
make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof; his 
horns shall be of the same; and thou shalt overlay it with 
brass.” It was the place where the sinner came to 
offer the sacrifice for his sins. 

Animal Sacrifice 

God instituted animal sacrifice. In the third chapter 
of Genesis we find that when man sinned he made fig- 
leaf aprons and clothed himself. He did not sacrifice 
the animal, but when God, came upon the scene He took 
the skins of animals and clothed Adam and Eve. The 


180 


MEETING JESUS 


animal of course had to die before they could be clothed 
in< its skin. Did you ever stop to think that man is the 
only creature on the face of the earth that does not 
naturally furnish his own clothing? Everything you 
have on speaks of death. An animal had to die to get 
your shoes. The wool had to be severed from the sheep ’a 
back, the place from whence it drew its life to make your 
garments. The cotton had to be pulled from the stock, 
the place of life, if it becomes clothing for you. 

The animals and the birds naturally furnish their own 
clothing, but man depends upon another for 1 his. There 
is a great spiritual lesson in this for us, if we can see 
it. It would teach us that sin has left us naked and we 
must be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, or 
ever be found naked. 

In Genesis 4:3-5 we read, “And in the process of time 
it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the 
ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also 
brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat 
thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to 
his offering. But unto Cain, and his offering, He had 
not respect . 7 * 

We note one is accepted and the other is rejected. 
Why? The very employment of these two men is sug¬ 
gestive to us. One is a keeper of sheep and the other is 
a tiller of the ground. A keeper of sheep dwelt in a 
tent and journeyed from place to place without any per¬ 
manent dwelling place, suggesting that he is a stranger, 



BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


181 


a sojourner tarrying here for a time, but earth is not his 
home. Like Abraham, he is looking for a city which 
hath foundation, whose builder and maker is God. It 
is the pilgrim life. 

A tiller of the ground is one who has settled down 
permanently in one place as if to say this is good enough 
for me. I will dwell here forever. 

Offerings Suggest Attitude 

Their offerings suggest what their attitude toward God 
and toward God’s plan of salvation is. 

Abel brought of his flock and Cain brought of the 
fruit of the ground. Abel and his offering were accept¬ 
ed and Cain and his offering were rejected. Do you 
konw why ? If you do you will be straight on the teach¬ 
ing of atonement in all the Word of God. If you don’t 
you are apt to be crooked on the teaching of atonement in 
all the Word of God. 

Let us look at these offerings carefully. Cain ac¬ 
knowledged that he believed in a supreme being. He 
acknowledged more than that. He acknowledged that 
he owed obedience unto Him and he brought an offering 
of the fruits of the ground, a thank offering, not a sin 
offering, and placed it upon the altar. 

Notice that when men sinned in Genesis the third 
chapter, God cursed the ground because of sin. Cain 
has cultivated the ground that is under the curse and 
brings the works of his own hands and offers it to God. 




182 


MEETING JESUS 


Acknowledging Sin 

He does not acknowledge that he is a sinner and that 
the wages of sin is death and that he needed atonement 
made for his sin. He substitutes attainment for atone¬ 
ment and turns down the God-planned religion for the 
man-made religion, and would deny the fact of sin or 
refuse to acknowledge sin and confess sin. 

No doubt God had taught much about His early plans 
for atonement for sin that has not been recorded in 
the Word. 

We read in the apostate book of the New Testament, 
the book of Jude, in the eleventh verse, that “They have 
gone in the ways of Cain.’’ Then according to the Word 
of God we can expect that in these last days, many will 
depart from the true religion of blood atonement and 
take a substitute, which we see coming to pass before 
our very eyes now. 

How the false religions and the unbeliever are verify¬ 
ing the declarations of God’s Word. The religion of 
the Unitarianism, Christian Science, Spiritualism. The 
masses of moral men who are trusting in their own good 
works. The works of their own hands have gone in the 
ways of Cain. May God pity the poor souls. Yet if it 
were not true we would know the Bible was not true. 

Blood Sacrifice Acceptable 

Cain’s offering lay upon the altar. The best of the 



BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


183 


fruit and flowers was a far more beautiful sacrifice than 
the sacrificed lambs of Abel, but Hebrews 9:22 tells us 
why God could not accept it. “Without shedding the 
blood there is no remission, ’ ’ and there was no shedding 
of blood in the fruits. Therefore there was no acknowl¬ 
edgment of sin and God can never receive a thank offer¬ 
ing from our hands until first we have the sin offering, 
for they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Rom. 
8 : 8 . 

Cain got mad because he was not received and God 
reasoned with him, for God is no respecter of persons. 
He told Cain if he offered well he would be accepted, if 
not a sin offering was crouching at the door. He could 
get the lamb that was crouching at the door and bring 
it and offer it and he would be accepted. 

It reminds us of Rev. 2:20, “Behold I stand at the 
door and knock.’’ The real lamb of God is knocking at 
our door and we have fellowship with Him. Cain 
turned God’s reasoning and God’s plans down and went 
away. 

Just the same way, we see the moral man and others 
turning God’s plans down and going after their own. 
We see there is no salvation in believing in a Supreme 
Being and no approach to that Supreme Being only as 
we come to Him through the atoning merits of the blood. 

A Lamb from the Flock 

Abel brought a lamb from his flock to the altar. In 



184 


MEETING JESUS 


this act, he acknowledged that he was a sinner and 
knowing that the wages of sin is death and acknowledg¬ 
ing it to be true, he takes the promise of God in Gen. 
3:15, “It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise 
His heel.” 

He saw there the promise of a redeemer to come in 
the seed of a woman, not the seed of the man. So if 
Christ had an earthly father he was not the promised 
seed. Heb. 11:4 says, “By faith, Abel offered unto 
God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he 
obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying 
of his gifts.” 

His faith rested upon God’s promise in Gen. 3:15, of 
the lamb of God to come to atone for his sins, and he 
showed by his offering that while it was not possible 
that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away 
sins, Heb. 10:4, yet the offering of animal sacrifice 
showed that they had faith in the real lamb, God’s 
Lamb. 

John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world.” He obtained witness by 
that. It seems that God must have sent fire to consume 
his sacrifice for both Cain and Abel knew that Abel’s 
sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s rejected. 

i 

God’s Appointed Way 

Likewise we who come in God’s appointed way today 
receive the witness of the Spirit. 



BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


185 


Rom. 8:16 says, “The Spirit itself beareth witness 
with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” No 
one can possibly have the witness of the Spirit until they 
come in God’s appointed way by the blood. The oil, 
which is a symbol of the Spirit, was never placed upon 
a cleansed leper until the blood had been applied. 

Blood atonement is scoffed at by many, but it is the 
only religion that brings the witness of the Spirit, mak¬ 
ing one conscious of the fact that their sins are forgiven. 

There are some religious terms that I have asked many 
questions about. They are conversion, regeneration, 
consecration and sanctification. 

I have found that conversion simply means a turning, 
and I would say that God has nothing more to do with 
our conversion than sending us the truth which gives 
us light and shows us the necessity of it. 

God does not force us to turn. He has given us the 
power of choice, and while we may have light and know 
the will of God concerning us, we can go on and turn 
it down if we will. 

Conversion Our Part 

We can convert. We can give up our way to take 
God’s way, and when we do, God comes in with His 
work of regeneration. You say how long must I wait 
after I am converted until God regenerates me? I will 
ask you one question. I stand here with a pistol and 
shoot through the back of that seat. Which gets through 



186 


MEETING JESUS 


first, the bullet or the hole? I guess there is not much 
difference. 

So I will say that a God Who loves you and has sac¬ 
rificed to atone for your sins and waits with outstretched 
arms to receive you will not keep you waiting when you 
turn unto Him. 

Regeneration God's Part 

Regeneration is God’s part entirely. I have nothing 
to do with that. You have kept God waiting, but God 
will never keep you waiting. Then these terms go to¬ 
gether. I believe we have two others that go together, 
consecration and sanctification. 

We read in Rom. 12:1, “I beseech you, therefore, 
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which 
is your reasonable service." I have noticed that Paul 
was very careful in the use of that word “brethren." 
He never uses it of any one except the Israelites that he 
called his brethren in the flesh, and of those who had 
been born again. 

He is writing here to Gentiles and he calls them breth¬ 
ren, so they were believers or Christians, and he be¬ 
seeches these Christians to present their bodies a living 
sacrifice. 

They had eternal life; they were saved, but he is ex¬ 
horting them to give their bodies up to the service of 
God, a living sacrifice. 



BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


187 


I know that every Old Testament sacrifice was a finger¬ 
board, pointing to the cross. Every one a type of the 
great Jesus Christ. They all had their fulfillment in 
Him. 

Ourselves a Sacrifice 

After we pass the cross we see God beseeching us that 
have received salvation to present ourselves in return a 
sacrifice. Now, I believe it would be perfectly legiti¬ 
mate for us to( go back into the Old Testament and take 
their sacrifices there, which were types of Christ, to 
illustrate at least the condition in which we are to pre¬ 
sent ourselves in return unto God. 

In Exodus 12 we have the Passover lamb. It was to 
be of the first year, without spot and without blemish. 

In Exodus 29:1 we read, “ Take one young bullock and 
two rams without blemish.” Young and without blem¬ 
ish is the thing we are after. 

In Malachi, the apostate book of the Old Testament, 
we read of God’s complaint of the people because they 
offered the blind, lame and the sick upon the altar. 
That which they could not use for anything else. 

Now, if I may use these as illustrations of our sacri¬ 
fice in return to our Lord we must come to this con¬ 
clusion, that He is displeased with our waiting until 
we are old and stricken down with years or sick, our 
bodies racked with fever and tortured with pain before 
we offer ourselves to God. 



188 


MEETING JESUS 


He would have us seek first, the kingdom, and give the 
very best we have to God. He gave the very best He 
had to us. 

I notice that the first thing they did with their offer¬ 
ing when they brought it to the altar was to kill it. Is 
there any scripture to lead us to think that the same 
thing should be true of us when we offer ourselves to 
God? 

How about Rom. 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also our¬ 
selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God 
through Jesus Christ, our Lord”? 

Then I notice in the first five chapter of Leviticus that 
the inwards was washed with water. 

So likewise Titus 3:5 says, “Not by works of righteous¬ 
ness which we have done, but according to His mercy 
He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and re¬ 
newing of the Holy Ghost.” 

Cleansing the Sacrifice 

We are to be reckoned dead and cleansed inwardly, 
and then we are fitted for a living sacrifice unto God. 
We are not upon the altar for salvation. Christ was on 
the altar for our salvation, and salvation is the gift of 
God. 

We do not present anything to take a gift, but since 
we have the gift, God would have us show our apprecia¬ 
tion and in return present ourselves unto Him and we 
get upon the altar for His service. 




BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


189 


We hear people sing, “My all is on the altar. I am 
waiting for the fire, ,> but that is an nnscriptnral song, 
for we read in Leviticus 6:8, “That the fire was ever 
kept burning on the altar. It was never put out.” 
Christ is our altar. 

Exodus 29:37 says, “Whatsoever toucheth the altar 
must be holy.” So we are to present ourselves holy, 
separated from all sin. 

Matt. 23:19 says that the “altar sanctifieth the gift.” 
This means to be set apart for holy use. The harvest is 
great and the laborers are few. There are many church 
members, but few laborers. 

If we get upon God’s altar we are there to bum in 
His service and we will find the fire has not gone out. 
Some people think fire means enthusiasm, but I do not 
find anything to indicate that. Fire makes heat. While 
you burn you will get warm hearted and grow enthusi¬ 
astic, no doubt. 

Fire gives light. You must burn in order to give 
light. Fire brings suffering. Jesus said in Luke 12:50, 
I have a baptism to be baptized with: and how am I 
pained till it be accomplished.” That was His baptism 
of suffering upon the cross. 

John said in Matt. 3:11 that “He (Jesus) shall bap¬ 
tize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” As soon 
as the .disciples were baptized with the Holy Spirit on 
the day of Pentecost, storms of persecution burst forth 
upon them and they suffered for His sake. 



190 


MEETING JESUS 


Now read 2 Tim. 3:12, “Yea and all that will live 
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. All that 
live godly, note, shall suffer persecution as sure as you 
get upon God’s altar today. He will press you into 
service and He may send you to right some wrong and 
the flesh or the natural man w T ill wince under the flames 
that lick about you because it humbles the self life. 

He will send you out to talk to someone about his soul 
and self may not want to do that, and the world that 
hated Christ will not like you, and as sure as you are 
Godly you will have some persecution. 

Binding the Sacrifice 

No wonder the Psalmist said, bind the sacrifice to the 
horns of the altar. A horn is a symbol of strength, and 
we are to be bound to the strong one. He must have 
seen the tendency of the sacrifice to shrink from the 
altar, as we know our natural self does now. And it 
needs binding there, for as sure as the fire begins to 
burn there is a tendency to get away from it and out of 
the flames. It is easier outwardly to get away and out 
of the fire than it is to stay there and burn, but it is 
more peaceful to stay and burn for God. 

It is a bad thing when once on the altar to get off 
again, because as sure as you do the world sticks to you. 
I remember when a boy at home my father used to 
butcher from eight to twelve big hogs every winter for 



BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


191 


meat. The day before the butchering was a day of 
cleaning off the tables and chopping blocks, etc. Butch¬ 
ering day was a hard day. We would kill the hogs, 
scald them, scrape them and hang them up. Then we 
would take out their inwards and wash them out with 
clean water. We would let them hang in the cool air 
until the meat was cold, and then father and I would 
lay them upon the chopping blocks and he would cut 
the hogs in pieces, and it was my work as a boy to carry 
the meat into the smokehouse. Like most lazy boys, I 
would try to carry it all at one load, and I have some 
times dropped a piece. Do you know what happened? 
It seemed as if that piece of meat was a magnet and all 
the loose dirt about just jumped at it and stuck fast. 
Then I would take it to the pump and wash and wash 
and pump and I could clean a whole hog before I got 
that one piece of meat clean. So with the man who was 
once on the altar of God, and was clean from the defile¬ 
ment of the world. If he gets off the altar you will find 
the world sticking to him and you can win a dozen men 
to Christ while you are getting one of these old back¬ 
sliders cleaned up again and back on the altar in His 
service again. 

That is what will hapen to all of us if we do not bind 
the sacrifice to the altar. I believe we must have cords 
that will stand the test of fire if we would bind ourselves 
there, and I have read in Eccl. 4:12 that “a threefold 



192_MEETING JESUS 

cord is not quickly broken. ’ ’ Are you on the altar ? If 
you are, let me suggest that you take the cord of Bible 
study and day by day by its use bind yourself to the 
altar, even to Jesus Christ. 

Using the Strong Cords 

I care not how strong you may be, you will get off 
the altar if you do not study your Bible daily. Then I 
would like to suggest another cord, and that is prayer. 
Bible study and prayer go together. Whenever you find 
yourself getting a little loose in your faithfulness to 
Jesus Christ, just taken an extra hitch on the cord of 
prayer and tighten up a little. 

The third one I would suggest is the cord of obedience. 
You may study your Bible and pray, but if you do not 
obey God’s command you will get off the altar, so use 
the cord of obedience every time a new ray of light 
flashes across your pathway. 

“We are witnesses to these things, and so is also the 
Holy Spirit whom God hath given to them that obey 
Him.” Acts 5:32. 

He gives the Spirit to those who obey, and if you would 
be a success for Him you must have the guidance of the 
Spirit. Then just to give gospel measure let us take 
another cord, the crowning cord of all, the cord of love. 
Love will lead one to do things' in service that nothing 




BINDING THE SACRIFICE 


193 


else will do. “We love Him because He first loved us.” 
1 John 4:19. 

God grant that you may get upon the altar and bind 
yourself there by these cords. That you may be con¬ 
sumed in the service of His will and that your lives in 
service may go up to Him as a sweet-smelling savour. 






THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 


I remember a student at our school one time asked a 
teacher why he thought that Christ was coming back 
again and he simply replied, “ Because He said He 
would.” That impressed me very much for I actually 
believed that Christ would do what He said He would 
do. 

When Jesus was saying “Good-by” in Jno. 14:3, He 
said, “I will come again.” If I should say to you in 
this place, before I leave, that I am coming back again 
you would expect me to keep my word and there are 
only two things that could keep me from it. First, the 
lack of power to control myself and keep my promise, 
or Second, my disposition to keep my word. I hardly 
think than anyone can charge Jesus with either of these. 
He has the power to do it for in Matt. 28:18 He said, 
“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” 
He has the disposition to do it for He is God and cannot 
lie. If I should make you a promise to return again I 
would not send my brother but would come myself and 
so I must say that the coming of the Holy Spirit, the 
third person of the Holy Trinity was not, and is not the 
fulfillment of the promise of His return. Jesus is the 
only religious leader that ever predicted his resurrection 
and kept his promise. 

Mohammed established a religion but God’s seal was 


196 


MEETING JESUS 


never put to it by bringing its founder from the grave. 
Confucius was a great religious leader but God gave no 
stamp of approval to his religion as He did not, to many 
Others, and the lack of this stamps them as false. Jesus 
predicted His resurrection and kept His word. “He 
arose for our justification/ ’ Rom. 4:25, and because He 
did, we are justified in believing that His work of aton¬ 
ing for our sins was true and accepted and we have 
forgiveness of sins. So we are justified in believing 
when Jesus makes a promise of His return that He will 
keep His word—for if He arose from the dead He cer¬ 
tainly will come again. 

When those that upheld the blood stained banner in 
Scotland had begun to lose heart John Knox left Ge¬ 
neva and made his way to Edinburg to encourage them 
and the whole country was on fire with godly enthusiasm 
at the promise of his coming. People left their employ¬ 
ment and came to wait and to welcome him. Even the 
Friars left their altars and the burning of incense and 
came and stood in line to watch the coming of that godly 
man. If the coming of John Knox would so stir a 
country like that, how much more ought the promise of 
the coming of Jesus to stir our hearts now! Jesus said 
He would come again and when He ascended in Acts 
1:11 we read that two angels appeared to His disciples 
and said, “Ye men of Galilee- why stand ye gazing up 
into the heaven; this same Jesus which is taken up from 
you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 197 


seen Him go into heaven.” The angels (heavenly mes¬ 
sengers) said, “He would come again.” I read in 1 
Thess. 4:16 that Paul said, “The Lord Himself shall de¬ 
scend from heaven with a shout,” so the Apostle to the 
Gentiles said, He would come again, and again I read 
that the writer of the book of Hebrews said He would 
come again, Heb. 9:28, “Unto them that look for Him 
shall He appear' the second time without sin unto salva¬ 
tion.” I expect to see Him for I am looking for Him. 

The second coming of Jesus Christ is not the coming 
of the Holy Spirit for Jesus plainly stated in John 14:16, 
“I will pray the Father and He shall give you another 
Comforter that He may abide with you forever.” Jesus 
had been one Comforter but He speaks of the Holy Spirit 
as another Comforter. The Holy Spirit came on the 
day of Pentecost as was promised and Peter, full of 
the Holy Spirit, was preaching to Israel in Acts 3:19-21 
after the Holy Spirit had come and he said to Israel, 
“Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins 
may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall 
come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send 
Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom 
the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution 
of all things, which God had spoken by the mouth of His 
holy prophets since the world began.” Israel did not 
repent and the coming of Jesus has been delayed and, 
since that God has been “taking out of the Gentiles a 





198 


MEETING JESUS 


people for his name.” After this He will take up His 
dealings with Israel again, Acts 15:14-16. 

This is clear evidence that the coming of the Holy 
Spirit was not the fulfillment of the promise of the com¬ 
ing of Jesus. 

Some have seemed to think that Jesus comes every 
time a saint dies but the Scriptures plainly contradict 
this. In Phil. 1:23, Paul said, 11 1 am in a strait betwixt 
two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ; 
which is far better.” He did not think of death as the 
coming of Jesus but thought at death his spirit went to 
Jesus. When Stephen was stoned he said, “Lord Jesus 
receive my spirit, ’ ’ Acts 7:59. He did not see Jesus com¬ 
ing but saw the ‘ ‘ Son of man standing on the right hand 
of God.” In John 21:18-23 we have a farewell conver¬ 
sation of Jesus and Peter, and Jesus told Peter how he 
should die. Peter asked Jesus what should become 
of John and Jesus said unto him, “If I will that he 
tarry till I come what is that to thee ? Follow thou me. 
Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that 
that disciple should not die; yet Jesus said not unto Him, 
He shall not die but, if I will that he tarry till I come 
what is that to thee?” This is very plain that they 
did not believe the coming of Jesus to be death. They 
believed that when Jesus came that His disciples would 
not die. Some have thought that the destruction of Je¬ 
rusalem was the coming of Jesus but history proves that 
that was the coming of Titus with the Roman army and 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 199 


not the coming of Jesns. The book of Revelation was 
written after the destruction of Jerusalem and this book 
is clear that the coming of Jesus was yet future. 

When Christ comes the sleeping saints are raised and 
the living saints translated and this does not occur every 
time a person dies. Neither did it occur at the destruc¬ 
tion of Jerusalem. 

A preacher said to me some time ago that he did not 
consider the teaching of the second coming of Jesus very 
important. My Bible says all Scripture is important or 
profitable and if we preach on this theme proportionately 
as to the number of times it is mentioned in the Bible 
we will find that it has the pre-eminence of all others. 
That preacher was continually preaching on baptism and 
while I believe that baptism has its place I do not find 
it to be the prominent doctrine of the Bible. 

I heard of some fellows that made a bet that a certain 
preacher could get water out of any verse in the Bible. 
They finally gave him the first verse of the Bible to 
preach from, 11 In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth. ’’ After reading his text he proceeded to 
say, * ‘ It is a well known fact, friends, that three-fourths 
of the earth’s surface is water,” and he immediately 
proceeded to preach on water baptism—but if we will 
study the Word of God carefully we will find that the 
second coming of Christ has the pre-eminence over water 
baptism twenty to one in the number of times mentioned. 
Some preachers never preach unless they take you to 



200 


MEETING JESUS 


the cemetery and picture the monster, Death, but if we 
stick to the Bible and preach on themes proportionately 
to the number of times mentioned we will preach forty 
sermons on the coming of Christ while we preach one on 
death. 

The second coming of Jesus is mentioned in the Old 
Testament about ten times, to one of the first coming. 
The Jews were slow to accept Christ because they could 
not grasp the thought of a suffering Messiah and finally 
driven to desperation they thought there must be two— 
one to suffer and one that was to come in glory. They 
did not grasp the resurrection and the second coming 
and were confused. They were looking for one to rule 
the world because of the prominence of this teaching of 
a King with power to rule as taught in the Old Testa¬ 
ment, we see that this same Jesus of humility will come 
again with power and rule the world and be the Jews’ 
Messiah. When you read the Old Testament, the Scrip¬ 
ture of the Jews, and mark the passages of the coming 
King by the time you reach the book of Malachi your 
ears are full of the sound of footsteps of the coming King. 
On an average about every twenty-fourth verse in the 
New Testament speaks of the second coming of Jesus. 
The four Gospels are occupied with Christ as King to 
rule Israel and the nations. Did He fail or is He coming 
to fulfiill His promises? The book of Acts teaches He is 
coming back again—the book of Romans is divided into 
three parts, doctrinal, dispensational and practical and 




THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 201 


the climax of each division is the coming of onr Lord. 
We read in 1 Cor. 1:7 “That ye come behind in no gift; 
waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ In 
2 Cor. 5:10, “He is coming to set up His judgment 
seat.” In Galatians we read nothing about the coming 
of the Lord for our position there is “on the cross” with 
Him. Neither do we read about it in Ephesians, for 
our position there is “seated with Him in heaven,” but 
in Philippians, the keyword of which is Christian ex¬ 
perience, we read in chapter 3:20, 21 (R. V.), “For our 
citizenship is in heaven; from whence we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile 
body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious 
body.” In Colossians 3:3 we read, “Ye are dead and 
your life is hid with Christ in God , 9 9 but lest we forget 
he says in the next verse, ‘ ‘ When Christ, who is our life 
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in 
glory.” In 1 Thessalonians 1:9, 10, “Ye turned to God 
from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait 
for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, 
even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come.” 
The last of every chapter in this book ends with the com¬ 
ing of the Lord. 2 Thessalonians is full of the second 
coming of the Lord. 1 Timothy 6:14, “That thou keep 
this commandment without spot unrebukable until the 
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Timothy 4:1 
says, “He shall judge the quick and the dead at his ap¬ 
pearing,” and in verse 8, “Everyone that loves his ap- 



202 


MEETING JESUS 


pearing shall receive a crown of righteousness. ’’ In Ti¬ 
tus 2:11-13 we read what the grace of God teaches, “For 
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to 
all men teaching—First to deny ungodliness and worldly 
lusts—Second, that we should live soberly, righteously 
and godly in the present world—Third, looking for that 
blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and 
our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Hebrews is full of types, 
figures and shadows all blending into the one event, the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 10:37 says, 
‘ ‘ For yet a little while and He that shall come will come 
and will not tarry.” James is a very conservative 
writer but he declares in the 5th chapter that the Lord 
cometh. 1 Peter 1:7 tells us that our faith will be more 
precious than gold at the appearing of Jesus.” His 
second epistle shows us the condition of the last days 
and he says, ‘‘ There shall come in the last days scoffers, 
walking after their own lusts and saying, ‘ ‘ Where is the 
promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep 
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the 
creation,” 3:3-4, but he adds in the 10th verse that the 
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. John, 
in his First Epistle, 2:28, urges “to abide in Him, that 
when He shall appear we may have confidence and not be 
ashamed before Him and His coming.” Jude, who gives 
us the apostate conditions just before the coming of Jesus 
—when the true saints need to earnestly contend for the 
faith, quotes the prophecy of Enoch, thereby linking the 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 203 


Old Testament with the New; verse 14, “The Lord cometh 
with ten thousands of His saints. ’’ Revelation of course 
is the revelation of Jesus Christ and is full of His coming 
to rule; 1:7, “Behold, He cometh with the clouds, and 
every eye shall see Him and they also which pierced 
Him, and all kindred of the earth shall wail because of 
Him. ’’ This book tells of the binding and the doom of 
the devil. He would bring it into ill repute if he could 
and keep you from studying it, but it is full of the truth 
that we need in this present time. 

When I came to study this question for myself I found 
it was tied up with every important doctrine of the 
Bible. I found that when I came to preach the atone¬ 
ment that I could not fully preach it without the coming 
of Jesus. Heb. 9:12 says, “Neither by the blood of 
goats and calves but by His own blood He entered in 
once into the holy place, having obtained eternal re¬ 
demption for us.” I go back to Leviticus 16 to read of 
the great day of atonement when the high priest en¬ 
tered into the holy place once a year to make atonement 
for the people—the people waited outside for their 
priest’s return and when he returned they knew their 
sins had been forgiven. Jesus has gone into the real 
holy of holies with His own blood and we still wait, 
“we that have the first fruits of the Spirit groan within 
ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemp¬ 
tions of our bodies. 0 Rom. 8:23. When our High 



204 


MEETING JESUS 


Priest returns we will have, a glorified body and our re¬ 
demption will be complete. 

I found that the Resurrection was tied up with the 
coming of Jesus. If Jesus does not come there will be 
no resurrection, 1 Cor. 15:21-23. “For since by man 
came death. For as in Adam, all men die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive but every man in his own 
order: Christ the first fruits: afterward they that are 
Christ’s at His coming.” 

I found also it was tied up with sonship. 1 John 3:2, 
“Beloved now are we the sons of God but it doth not 
yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when 
He shall appear we shall be like Him for we shall see 
Him as.He is.” All? Creation waits for the coming 
of Jesus to bring it deliverance. Rom. 8:22. “For we 
know the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
until now, ’’ and it waits for the manifestation of the sons 
of God, Rom. 8:19. “The Devil will walk up and down 
in the earth deceiving, corrupting and destroying until 
Christ comes and then he will be bound and cast into 
the bottomless pit and shut up,” Rev. 20 :l-3. 

When Jude exhorts us to “earnestly contend for the 
faith” he calls our attention to the fact that the Lord 
is coming. He seems to depend upon this as a leverage 
in making strong his exhortation. 

When the writer of the book of Hebrews would urge 
faithfulness in church attendance he does so by the use 
of the teaching of the coming of the Lord, Heb. 10:25. 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 205 


“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as 
the manner of some is; but exhorting one another, and 
so much more as ye see the day approaching. * ’ 

If Paul would comfort the mourners who are lament¬ 
ing the loss of loved ones he does it through the teach¬ 
ing of the coming of the Lord. 1 Thess. 4:13-17, “But 
I would not have you to be ignorant brethren, concern¬ 
ing them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as 
others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus 
died and rose again even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say by the 
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain 
unto the coming of the Lord shall not go before them 
which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend 
from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the 
archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and 
remain shall be caught up together with them in clouds 
to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with 
the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these 
words. ’’ 

When we observe the Lord’s supper, “Ye do shew the 
Lord’s death till he comes,” 1 Cor. 11:26. If the Lord 
has come it is out of place to keep this ordinance and we 
will cease keeping it when He comes. 

When Peter advises the elders to be faithful in caring 
for and feeding the flock, not for money or for the sake 
of being a church boss, but to be an example for the 




206 


MEETING JESUS 


flock, he tells them that they will receive a reward, and 
it is a crown of glory when the Chief Shepherd shall 
appear, 1 Peter 5 :l-4. 

James tells us that when we see capital organized, 
and labor organized, and see them frowning at each 
other, that then is the time for the brethren to be pa¬ 
tient, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” James 
5:7. We see these very things before our eyes in this 
present time. 

When will Christ come? Matt. 24:36, “But of that 
day and hour knoweth no man.” Then to say that 
Christ will not come for a thousand years is wrong— 
to say He will not come for ten days is wrong. Matt. 
24:44 says, * ‘ Therefore be ye also ready for in such an 
hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Ask 
the German Emperor if he thinks the Lord is coming 
today and he will tell you, no—ask King George, of 
England, if he thinks the Lord is coming today and he 
will tell you no—ask the President of France if he thinks 
the Lord is coming today and he will tell you, no—ask 
the theater gadder, the card clubs, the dancers and the 
backslidden church members if they think the Lord is 
coming today and they will tell you no. “In such an 
hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” The 
people of the world will not be looking for Him when 
He comes but those that are Spirit taught will, “For 
unto them that look for him shall he appear the second 
time,” Heb. 9:28. 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 207 


I cannot find in Scriptures one promise that waits 
for fulfillment before the coming of Jesus. 11 The Gospel 
of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a 
witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come,’ ’ 
Matt. 24:14. A witness will condemn one if he is wrong 
as well as justify if he is right. The Gospel is a saviour 
of life unto life or of death unto death. According to 
Col. 1:23 it had been preached to every creature in 
Paul’s day—First, conditions, “As it was in the days 
of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the son of 
man,” Luke 17:26. We can expect a repetition of the 
days of Noah, Gen. 6:4 says, “That there were giants 
in the earth in those days; mighty men, men of renown . 9 9 
I suppose that they were giants intellectually as well as 
physically. That was as man saw him, but God saw 
“that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
was only evil continually.” There was a tendency to 
make much out of man and a turning to man rather than 
to God. It seems that women leaving their place of 
submission were coming into great prominence—we can 
expect a repetition of this in the days when the Son 
of man comes. 

Second, because of wars and famines. There will 
come a great cry for peace, but when they say, “Peace 
and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them,” 
1 Thess. 5:3. 

Third, when the Israelites begin to show signs of 
national life as manifested in the budding of the fig 



208 


MEETING JESUS 


tree, Luke 21:29-31, “That is the returning to their land 
for their own government you know that is the time of 
His coming.” 

Fourth, there will be a drifting toward worldliness 
of the mass of professed Christians. A falling away 
from the true faith. 2 Thess. 2:3. 

Fifth, false doctrines will be spread broadcast and 
be accepted in general in the place of the true teaching 
of the Word of God. The unscriptural teaching of the 
common fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man will 
be taught freely, 2 Tim. 4:3-4. 

Sixth, “Iniquity will abound to the extent that the 
love of many will wax cold. ’’ Matt. 24:12. 

They who have held the high Bible standard will be¬ 
gin to feel it is no use and after all, maybe they are too 
narrow and they will begin to let down and their love 
will get cold and their enthusiasm wane. 

Seventh, the capital of the world will be in the hands 
of the few—there will be a few exceedingly rich people 
and many will be poor. James 5:1-8. How will He 
come? He will come first as a thief in the night. 1 
Thess. 5:2 states this with a number of other passages 
in the New Testament. A thief does not tell you when 
he is coming and he does not come to steal your old junk 
but to take your jewels. A thief comes in the night 
when darkness covers the face of the earth. This is 
what Jesus will do. He will come first to take His 
jewels, His precious ones, out of the world and the world 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 209 


will know nothing about it until they are gone. The 
world will be asleep to this truth until after it occurs and 
the true Christians are missing. 

He will come as the morning star to the Church. 
Rev. 22:16. He will come later as the Son of Righteous¬ 
ness to the Jews. Mai. 4:2. As the morning star ap¬ 
pears before the rising of the sun so Jesus will come to 
His church before He comes in full revelation later to 
the Jew and to the world. The Nations at this time 
will have a federation and a world ruler over all the 
armies and navies of the world so that nation cannot go 
to war with nation and all the world will wonder at 
this man and say, who is able to make war with him. 
Rev. 13:4 He will be the political head of the world 
and he is to rule for seven years. This is what the Bible 
calls for and it is what the Hague Peace Conference con¬ 
stitution called for. He will enter into a covenant with 
the Jews but will break it in the midst of the week of 
years. Jesus said in John 5:43, “I am come in my 
Father’s name and ye received me not; if another shall 
come in his own name, him ye will receive.” This is 
the man they receive and enter into covenant with. 
There will be a federation of churches as well as a federa¬ 
tion of nations and it is very clear that the Pope of 
Rome will be the head of Apostate Christendom—he no 
doubt, is the second beast of Rev. 13. We see the mother 
church and her daughters in Rev. 17 and her judgment. 
Jesus will come as the bridegroom to the church. He 



210 


MEETING JESUS 


will come later as the Judge to the nations of the world. 
He will come in the air for the church where they are 
called to Him. 1 Thess. 4:17. He will come to the 
Mount of Olives later, Zech. 14:4, when He will cut 
short the Anti-Christ, the Devil’s Christ that the world 
has accepted and destroy the flower of his army and 
deliver the just from his treachery. 

When Christ calls for His own—the sleeping saints 
will come from their graves and the living saints will 
be translated. 1 Cor. 15:51-52. “ Behold I show you a 
mystery, we shall not all sleep but we shall all be 
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
last trump; for the trumpet shall sound and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ’ ’ 
We shall be like him with a glorified body saved from 
the presence of sin and so shall we ever be with the 
Lord. When He comes those that are ready when 
He comes go with Him and the door is shut. Matthew 
25:1-13 gives us the picture of the virgins. They all had 
lamps which represented the profession, only those who 
had oil in their lamps went in with him when he came. 
Oil seems to be a symbol of the Holy Spirit. “If any 
man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.” 
Rom. 8:9. 

One may have the profession without the possession. 
The Holy Spirit makes people ready and causes them to 
be faithful and watchful and the one who prays in the 



THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 211 


Spirit must pray this Scriptural prayer, the last one 
in the Bible, “Even so come Lord Jesus.’’ 

He said to those who had no oil, “I know you not.” 
To know Him means to have eternal life and to have 
eternal life means to be indwelt by the Spirit—to be in¬ 
dwelt by the Spirit means that we are men and women 
of prayer—who live for Him day by day. If so, we 
are ready. 

Are you ready? “Two men shall be in one bed, the 
one shall be taken, the other left. Two women shall be 
grinding together, the one shall be taken and the other 
left. Two men shall be in the field, one shall be taken, 
the other left. ’ 9 Luke 17:34-36. 

Will you, my reader, be taken or left? Which? 


Amen. 
































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